Replicate analysis from: tinyVAST: R package with an expressive interface to specify lagged and simultaneous effects in multivariate spatio-temporal models

Aim
Multivariate spatio-temporal models are widely applicable, but specifying their structure is complicated and may inhibit wider use.  We introduce the R package tinyVAST from two viewpoints: the software user and the statistician. 
Innovation
From the user viewpoint, tinyVAST adapts a widely used formula interface to specify generalized additive models, and combines this with arguments to specify spatial and spatio-temporal interactions among variables. These interactions are specified using arrow notation (from structural equation models), or an extended arrow-and-lag notation that allows simultaneous, lagged, and recursive dependencies among variables over time.  The user also specifies a spatial domain for areal (gridded), continuous (point-count), or stream-network data. From the statistician's viewpoint, tinyVAST constructs sparse precision matrices representing multivariate spatio-temporal variation, and parameters are estimated by specifying a generalized linear..., , , # Replicate analysis from: tinyVAST: R package with an expressive interface to specify lagged and simultaneous effects in multivariate spatio-temporal models

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.rv15dv4fv](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.rv15dv4fv)

Code and data required to replicate analyses.

## Description of the data and file structure

Data files include:

1. goaai_outline.xxx -- files with extensions \".shp\", \".dbf\", \".prj\", and \".shx\" representing a shapefile with the spatial domain for the case-study example using projection CRS \"+proj=natearth +lon_0=-170 +x_0=0 +y_0=0 +datum=WGS84 +units=km +no_defs\"
2. Formatted_data.csv -- A CSV containing all data used in the case study analysis. This contains the following columns:

* Categorical variable \"Year\": with values \"camera\" (for when the camera survey was conducted), or \"1990-2019\" (indicating the calendar year for bottom trawl surveys)
* Integer variable \"Count\": indicating the count of a given taxon in that sample
* Categorical vari...,