Mapping Species Distributions

Author: Janet Franklin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139485296
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 538

Book Description
Maps of species' distributions or habitat suitability are required for many aspects of environmental research, resource management and conservation planning. These include biodiversity assessment, reserve design, habitat management and restoration, species and habitat conservation plans and predicting the effects of environmental change on species and ecosystems. The proliferation of methods and uncertainty regarding their effectiveness can be daunting to researchers, resource managers and conservation planners alike. Franklin summarises the methods used in species distribution modeling (also called niche modeling) and presents a framework for spatial prediction of species distributions based on the attributes (space, time, scale) of the data and questions being asked. The framework links theoretical ecological models of species distributions to spatial data on species and environment, and statistical models used for spatial prediction. Providing practical guidelines to students, researchers and practitioners in a broad range of environmental sciences including ecology, geography, conservation biology, and natural resources management.

Habitat Suitability and Distribution Models

Author: Antoine Guisan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521765137
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 513

Book Description
This book introduces the key stages of niche-based habitat suitability model building, evaluation and prediction required for understanding and predicting future patterns of species and biodiversity. Beginning with the main theory behind ecological niches and species distributions, the book proceeds through all major steps of model building, from conceptualization and model training to model evaluation and spatio-temporal predictions. Extensive examples using R support graduate students and researchers in quantifying ecological niches and predicting species distributions with their own data, and help to address key environmental and conservation problems. Reflecting this highly active field of research, the book incorporates the latest developments from informatics and statistics, as well as using data from remote sources such as satellite imagery. A website at www.unil.ch/hsdm contains the codes and supporting material required to run the examples and teach courses.

Joint Species Distribution Modelling

Author: Otso Ovaskainen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108492460
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 389

Book Description
A comprehensive account of joint species distribution modelling, covering statistical analyses in light of modern community ecology theory.

Invasive Species

Author: Andrew P. Robinson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 052176596X
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 427

Book Description
This book reviews the latest risk-based techniques to protect national interests from invasive pests and pathogens before, at and within national borders.

Predictive Species and Habitat Modeling in Landscape Ecology

Author: C. Ashton Drew
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1441973907
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 319

Book Description
Most projects in Landscape Ecology, at some point, define a species-habitat association. These models are inherently spatial, dealing with landscapes and their configurations. Whether coding behavioral rules for dispersal of simulated organisms through simulated landscapes, or designing the sampling extent of field surveys and experiments in real landscapes, landscape ecologists must make assumptions about how organisms experience and utilize the landscape. These convenient working postulates allow modelers to project the model in time and space, yet rarely are they explicitly considered. The early years of landscape ecology necessarily focused on the evolution of effective data sources, metrics, and statistical approaches that could truly capture the spatial and temporal patterns and processes of interest. Now that these tools are well established, we reflect on the ecological theories that underpin the assumptions commonly made during species distribution modeling and mapping. This is crucial for applying models to questions of global sustainability. Due to the inherent use of GIS for much of this kind of research, and as several authors’ research involves the production of multicolored map figures, there would be an 8-page color insert. Additional color figures could be made available through a digital archive, or by cost contributions of the chapter authors. Where applicable, would be relevant chapters’ GIS data and model code available through a digital archive. The practice of data and code sharing is becoming standard in GIS studies, is an inherent method of this book, and will serve to add additional research value to the book for both academic and practitioner audiences.

Ecological Niches and Geographic Distributions (MPB-49)

Author: A. Townsend Peterson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691136882
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 330

Book Description
Terminology, conceptual overview, biogeography, modeling.

Seasonally Dry Tropical Forests

Author: Rodolfo Dirzo
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1610910214
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 409

Book Description
Though seasonally dry tropical forests are equally as important to global biodiversity as tropical rainforests, and are one of the most representative and highly endangered ecosystems in Latin America, knowledge about them remains limited because of the relative paucity of attention paid to them by scientists and researchers and a lack of published information on the subject. Seasonally Dry Tropical Forests seeks to address this shortcoming by bringing together a range of experts in diverse fields including biology, ecology, biogeography, and biogeochemistry, to review, synthesize, and explain the current state of our collective knowledge on the ecology and conservation of seasonally dry tropical forests. The book offers a synthetic and cross-disciplinary review of recent work with an expansive scope, including sections on distribution, diversity, ecosystem function, and human impacts. Throughout, contributors emphasize conservation issues, particularly emerging threats and promising solutions, with key chapters on climate change, fragmentation, restoration, ecosystem services, and sustainable use. Seasonally dry tropical forests are extremely rich in biodiversity, and are seriously threatened. They represent scientific terrain that is poorly explored, and there is an urgent need for increased understanding of the system's basic ecology. Seasonally Dry Tropical Forests represents an important step in bringing together the most current scientific information about this vital ecosystem and disseminating it to the scientific and conservation communities.

An Introduction to Using GIS in Marine Biology

Author: Colin D. MacLeod
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781909832145
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 150

Book Description
This book is the seventh companion volume to 'An Introduction To Using GIS In Marine Biology'. It is designed to augment the information on using GIS in marine biology provided in that book, and, indeed, to be used alongside it rather than to be used independently as a stand-alone volume. Therefore, this book will be of most interest to those who have already read 'An Introduction To Using GIS In Marine Biology'. This supplementary workbook contains five exercises covering the practical use of GIS in marine biology. These exercises aim to introduce marine biologists to using QGIS (or Quantum GIS), a freely-available, open-source GIS software package, and range from making a simple map of the locations where a species was recorded for inclusion in a publication, or presentation to creating grids of species presence-absence, richness and abundance, and grids of environmental variables. The exercises are designed to be followed in the order they are presented, and work with a specific data set which can be downloaded separately for free. Working through these five exercises will help the novice GIS user obtain experience in working with GIS and so develop their GIS skills. Unlike most other GIS tutorials, this information is specifically presented in a marine biological context and all the exercises use real data from a marine biological study. Therefore, these exercises are more likely to provide the kind of experience in using GIS that marine biologists will find useful and applicable to their own research. These exercises are presented in the same easy-to-follow flow diagram-based format first introduced in the 'How To...' section of 'An Introduction To Using GIS In Marine Biology'. They are accompanied by images which show the user how their GIS project should look as they progress through the exercises, allowing them to compare their own work to the expected results. This is part of the PSLS series of books which use Task-Oriented Learning (TOL) to teach the practical application of research skills to the life sciences. This involves demonstrating how these skills can be used in the specific circumstances in which they are likely to be required rather than concentrating on teaching theoretical frameworks or on teaching skills in a generic or abstract manner. By seeing how the similar processes are used to achieve a variety of different goals within a specific field, it becomes easier for the reader to identify the general rules behind the practical application of these processes and, therefore, to transfer them to novel situations they may encounter in the future.

Mapping the Diversity of Nature

Author: R.I. Miller
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9780412455100
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 250

Book Description
The diversity of life is displayed by a diversity the biodiversity elements. These unique of structural and functional elements. Many approaches are usually tailored to the region of aspects of this diversity are critical for main the world where the scientists' work is focused. taining the healthy functioning of biological This book presents accounts of many tech systems both within short and long time scales. niques that are currently being used in different Some highly diverse features of nature arise parts of the globe by conservation scientists. simply from the heterogeneous patterns that Many different techniques are necessary to comprise the web of nature. Many of these handle the differences in data types and data features contribute to the beauty and quality of coverages that occur across the globe. Also, a life. Humans do not yet understand enough variety of mapping approaches are needed about the complexity of nature to distinguish today to strengthen the many diverse critical those elements that act to support natural conservation objectives. These objectives include vitality from those elements that contribute the identification of the distribution patterns exclusively to our experience of beauty and for a species or habitat type and the placement quality in life. of protected area boundaries.

Mapping Species Distributions

Author: Janet Franklin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521876354
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 339

Book Description
A comprehensive summary of species distribution modeling methods integrating ecological and statistical models with spatial data, and a framework for implementation.