USEFUL ECOLOGICAL WEBLOG

A very useful blog that you should create an account for so that you get posted useful information on species prediction. You will be developing models to predict where species can potential invade and the distribution of species taking into account the effects of climate change.

http://landshape.org/enm/?p=43 (use the Subscribe Me to make an account on Feed Blitz for syndication)

The recently published paper by Jane Elith and Catherine Graham et.al. Novel methods improve prediction of species’ distributions from occurrence data (EG06) is sure to be a landmark study in the field. EG06 compares 16 modeling methods using 226 well-surveyed species in 6 regions of the world. Measures of statistical skill on held back data show a spread from a wide range of methods including: the older methods such as BIOCLIM, DOMAIN, through GARP, GLM and GAM to the newer arrivals from machine learning MAXENT, BRT and community based method GDM, prompting the conclusion “novel methods improve prediction”. The work of a great many people is appreciated, as these results will no doubt be very helpful to many biodiversity modellers in the future."

I will be making this review paper available shortly.

Cheers

Rich


Dr Richard Knight
Co-ordinator: National Information Society Learnerships - Ecological Informatics
Department of Biodiversity and Conservation Biology
University of the Western Cape
Private Bag X17
Bellville 7535

Phone 27 + 21 + 959 3940
Fax 27 + 21 + 959 1237

Email Rknight@uwc.ac.za
Web http://nisl.uwc.ac.za