Michael C. Whitlock

Michael C. Whitlock is a Canadian evolutionary biologist and population geneticist working in the University of British Columbia zoology department. With evolutionary ecologist Dolph Schluter, he coauthored The Analysis of Biological Data, an introductory statistics text designed around real biological questions and examples. The third edition, published by Macmillan Learning in 2020, covers study design, probability, estimation, hypothesis testing, regression, survival analysis, likelihood, and other methods used by biology students. Its companion resource pages provide chapter data, R code, laboratory exercises, visualizations, and review problems, linking statistical principles to reproducible practice. Whitlock’s research on genetic drift, adaptation, and the spatial structure of populations informs his practical approach to quantitative reasoning. Schluter contributes extensive work on ecology, adaptive radiation, and species formation. The Analysis of Biological Data is therefore a shared textbook rather than a sole-authored Michael C. Whitlock volume, and edition details matter because its examples, exercises, page count, and ISBNs changed across successive releases.