There will be periodic computer-based activities that might require software installs for your computers. All of these are open-source (free) and routinely used in science (safe). If you are ever confused, stop and ask for help. Activities are meant to reinforce concepts covered in class and build independence beyond the workshop.

Prior experience using command line programs or programming in general can be helpful but is not necessary. Some excercises will be woven into the practicals, but much of the experience will come from your mini-projects!

Some common prerequisites

If you do not already, please install the following:

  • install R v4.6.1
  • install R Studio
  • install a plain text editor for editing code or working with some plain text files used to attach metadata to your analyses in R.

For Windows users

  • install MobaXterm
    • This provides the necessary environemnt for Windows users to log onto the high-performcance cluster

Some R packages

One your R installation is complete, you can work ahead and install these pacakges in R:

  • tidyverse
  • tinytext
  • terra
  • mapplots
  • dplyr
  • ggplot2

To install the above packages, open R Studio and go to the built-in terminal. Try a line like install.packages("tidyverse").

On 29/09/2026: here are a few more packages that you need to install by tomorrow morning: Just run the following command:

install.packages(c("poppr", "vcfR", "StAMPP","vegan", "geosphere"))

If you face difficulties, please contact the instructors or your peers urgently. They will help you.