Introduction to Biological Data Analysis in Python: With realistic examples and exercises across genetics, genomics, ecology, conservation, epidemiology and microbiology.

by Stilianos Louca

This book introduces computational data analysis in biology, using the free and popular programming language Python 3. The book targets undergraduate and graduate students in biology with an interest in computational techniques, but could also be of interest to students in other scientific disciplines such as biochemistry, environmental sciences and physics. No prior programming experience is required﹣this book is intended for the motivated novice!

Readers will learn to load and analyze data and produce professional visualizations. The mathematical content is kept to a bare minimum. Examples and exercises are drawn from a wide spectrum across biology, such as epidemiology, ecology, conservation biology, neuroscience, evolution, genetics, genomics and microbiology. Many exercises use realistic datasets published in the scientific literature, such as bacterial genome sequences, animal GPS tracking data, population time series and biodiversity inventories. References to the scientific literature are provided throughout.

Kindle Edition

Published March 25, 2023

Reviews

[K. B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two things I really liked about this book: (1) It starts from the very basics of programming, and then gradually moves to more advanced concepts. (2) It includes seriously extensive exercises making use of large and interesting datasets from various fields (e.g., animal migration GPS data, bacterial genomes, etc). I only wish that the data visualization/plotting part came earlier in the book. Currently the book first teaches how to load & process data, printing out results as text or in table form, and only later teaches visualizations. This is only a minor issue, and I would definitely recommend this book. Python is the future of data analysis!