Bristlecone: An F# library for model-fitting and model-selection of ecological time-series data
Environmental archives such as sediment cores and tree rings provide important insights on the timing and rates of change in biodiversity and ecosystem function over the long-term. Such datasets are often analysed using empirical methods, which limits their ability to address ecological questions that seek to understand underlying ecological mechanisms and processes. Top down modelling approaches – where data is confronted with simple ecological models – can be used to infer the presence, form, and strength of mechanisms of interest. To aid adoption of time-series mechanistic modelling for long-term ecology, we created a F# library, Bristlecone, that can be used to apply this approach using a Model- Fitting and Model-Selection workflow. Our objective with Bristlecone was to create a library that could be used to efficiency and effectively conduct a full MFMS analysis for long-term ecological problems. We incorporated techniques to address specific challenges with environmental archives, including uneven time steps from age-depth models (for sediment cores), and allometry and seasonality (for tree rings). We include an example analysis to demonstrate functionality of Bristlecone. Our solution presents a straightforward, repeatable, and highly parallel method for conducting inference for long- term ecological problems.