I am a molecular biologist, trying to work my way through some ecological modeling. I found this book quite useful, since it has lot of examples and details. There is an online supplement for this book, where you can get all the scripts and pdf versions of the chapters, if you want. the R supplements, and the scripts give you a hands-on experience in handling the data in R. Tests like maximum likelihood, monte carlo are explained very well, and the R scripts help in understanding the nitty-gritties of programming. All in all, a good book.