Uncertainty in Habitat Suitability Modules

This module will introduce you to habitat suitability models and a new method for predicting habitat suitabilty, HEMI 2.

Learning Outcomes:

• Learn to create habitat maps with associated uncertainty maps.
• Work with a new modeling method

Activities

• Topic: Habitat Suitability Models
• Topic: HEMI 2
• Reading (optional): Wikipedia Page on Ecological Niches, focus on the "Hutchinsonian niche"
• Pythons (skim):
  • What parts of the US mainland are climatically suitable for invasive alien pythons spreading from Everglades
    National Park?
• Sasquatch (Big Foot) with MaxEnt (skim):
  • Predicting the distribution of Sasquatch in western North America: anything goes with ecological niche modelling

Lab

HEMI 2

Additional Papers on Habitat Suitability / Species Distribution Modeling

• Near term climate projections for invasive species distributions
• Modeling of species distributions with Maxent: new extensions and a comprehensive evaluation
• 2006, McCune, Non-parametric habitat models with automatic interactions (Non-parametric multiplicative regression, or NPMR)

Species-specific:

• Grapes:
  • Utilizing GIS Technologies in Selection of Suitable Vineyard Sites
• Tamarisk:
  • A tamarisk habitat suitability map for the continental United States
• Squid:
  • A GIS environmental modelling approach to essential fish habitat designation
  • Influences of environmental variability on the population structure and distribution patterns of the short-fin squid Illex coindetii (Cephalopoda: Ommastrephidae) in the Eastern Ionian Sea
  • A modeling approach to identify optimal habitat and suitable fishing grounds for neon flying squid (Ommasterephes bartramii) in the Northwest Pacific Ocean
• Northern Spotted Owl:
  • Modeling and Analysis Procedures used to Identify and Evaluate Potential Critical Habitat Networks for the Northern Spotted Owl
• Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Designation of Revised Critical Habitat for the Northern Spotted Owl
• Revised Recovery Plan for the Northern Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis caurina)
• Frogs:
  • 2013, Marcio et al., Understanding the mechanisms underlying the distribution of microendemic montane frogs (Brachycephalus spp., Terrarana: Brachycephalidae) in the Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest