species distribution model | ConservationBytes.com

… some (models) are useful

8 06 2021

As someone who writes a lot of models — many for applied questions in conservation management (e.g., harvest quotas, eradication targets, minimum viable population sizes, etc.), and supervises people writing even more of them, I’ve had many different experiences with their uptake and implementation by management authorities.

Some of those experiences have involved catastrophic failures to influence any management or policy. One particularly painful memory relates to a model we wrote to assist with optimising approaches to eradicate (or at least, reduce the densities of) feral animals in Kakadu National Park. We even wrote the bloody thing in Visual Basic (horrible coding language) so people could run the module in Excel. As far as I’m aware, no one ever used it.

Others have been accepted more readily, such as a shark-harvest model, which (I think, but have no evidence to support) has been used to justify fishing quotas, and one we’ve done recently for the eradication of feral pigs on Kangaroo Island (as yet unpublished) has led directly to increased funding to the agency responsible for the programme.

According to Altmetrics (and the online tool I developed to get paper-level Altmetric information quickly), only 3 of the 16 of what I’d call my most ‘applied modelling’ papers have been cited in policy documents:

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Tags: conservation, ecology, environment, extinction, mathematics, modelling, science
Categories : conservation, conservation biology, ecology, economics, environmental economics, environmental policy, exploitation, extinction, fisheries, harvest, invasive species, investment, management, mathematics, minimum viable population, modelling, mvp, planning, population dynamics, population viability analysis, PVA, research, science, species distribution model

History of species distribution models

21 07 2020

This little historical overview by recently completed undergraduate student, Sofie Costin (soon to join our lab!), nicely summarises the history, strengths, and limitations of species distribution modelling in ecology, conservation and restoration. I thought it would be an excellent resource for those who are just entering the world of species distribution models.

SDM

Of course, there is a strong association between and given species and its environment¹. As such, climate and geographical factors have been often used to explain the distribution of plant and animal species around the world.

Predictive ecological models, otherwise known as ‘niche models’ or ‘species distribution models’ have become a widely used tool for the planning of conservation strategies such as pest management and translocations^2-5. In short, species distribution models assess the relationship between environmental conditions and species’ occurrences, and then can estimate the spatial distribution of habitats suited to the study species outside of the sampling area^3,6.

While the application of species distribution models can reduce the time and cost associated with conservation research, and conservation managers are relying increasingly on them to inform their conservation strategies⁴, species distribution models are by no means a one-stop solution to all conservation issues. Read the rest of this entry »

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Tags: environmental niche, niche model, SDM, species distribution model
Categories : bioclimatic envelope, climate change, conservation, conservation biology, ecology, invasive species, management, modelling, niche model, software, species distribution model

Koala extinctions past, present, and future

12 06 2019

Photo by John Llewelyn

Koalas are one of the most recognised symbols of Australian wildlife. But the tree-living marsupial koala is not doing well throughout much of its range in eastern Australia. Ranging as far north as Cairns in Queensland, to as far west as Kangaroo Island in South Australia, the koala’s biggest threats today are undeniably deforestation, road kill, dog attacks, disease, and climate change.

With increasing drought, heatwaves, and fire intensity and frequency arising from the climate emergency, it is likely that koala populations and habitats will continue to decline throughout most of their current range.

But what was the distribution of koalas before humans arrived in Australia? Were they always a zoological feature of only the eastern regions?

The answer is a resounding ‘no’ — the fossil record reveal a much more complicated story.

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Tags: climate envelope, Eucalypt, Eucalyptus, koala, marsupial, niche, Phascolarctos, Phascolarctos cinereus, potential niche, SDM
Categories : Australia, biodiversity, biogeography, climate change, climate shift, conservation, conservation biology, conservation ecology, decline, deforestation, ecology, extinction, fragmentation, habitat loss, mammal, modelling, niche model, palaeo-ecology, research, science, southern Australia, species distribution model, threatened species, vegetation

Job: Research Fellow in Palaeo-Ecological Modelling

13 04 2017

I have another postdoctoral fellowship to advertise! All the details you need for applying are below.

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KEY PURPOSE

Scientific data such as fossil and archaeological records used as proxy to reconstruct past environments and biological communities (including humans) are sparse, often ambiguous or contradictory when establishing any consensus on timing or routes of initial human arrival and subsequent spread, the timing or extent of major changes in climate and other environmental perturbations, or the timing or regional pattern of biological extinctions.

The Research Fellow (Palaeo-Ecological Modelling) will assist in addressing these problems by developing state-of-the-art analytical and simulation tools to infer regional pattern of both the timing of human colonisation and megafauna extinction based on incomplete and sparse dataset, and investigating past environmental changes and human responses to identify their underlying causes and consequences on Australia’s landscapes, biodiversity and cultural history.

ORGANISATIONAL ENVIRONMENT

The position will be based in the School of Biological Sciences in the Faculty of Science & Engineering at Flinders University. Flinders University boasts a world-class Palaeontology Research Group (PRG) and the new Global Ecology Research Laboratory that have close association with the research-intensive South Australian Museum. These research groups contribute to building a dynamic research environment that explores the continuum of environmental and evolutionary research from the ancient to modern molecular ecology and phylogeography. The School of Biological Sciences is an integrated community researching and teaching biology, and has a long history of science innovation. The appointee will join an interdisciplinary school of approximately 45 academic staff. The teaching and research activities of the School are supported by a range of technical and administrative infrastructure services.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

The key responsibilities and selection criteria identified for this position should be read in conjunction with the Flinders University Academic Profiles for the relevant academic classification (scroll down to Academic Profiles).

The Research Fellow (Palaeo-Ecological Modelling) will work under the direction of the Project Chief Investigator, and will be required to: Read the rest of this entry »

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Tags: Adelaide, ecology, employment, Flinders University, job, modelling, palaeo-ecology, postdoc, Postdoctoral Fellow, science, South Australia
Categories : Australia, climate change, community ecology, conservation, demography, ecology, environmental science, extinction, Flinders University, mammal, minimum viable population, modelling, palaeo-ecology, population dynamics, research, species distribution model

Job: Koala Data Research Technician

6 03 2017

koala If you live in South Australia, and in Adelaide especially, you would have had to be living under a rock not to have heard of the Great Koala Counts 1 and 2. So I’m not really writing this for those sotto pietra types. If you are a regular reader of CB.com, you’ll also know that I’ve been involved in helping analyse the data from GKC1, as well as improving the design of the GKC2.

Well, the data are in for GKC2 and we need help to analyse them. Just as a little reminder, the GKCs are designed to provide better data to estimate the distribution and density of koalas in South Australia (especially in the Mount Lofty Ranges). We’ve already written one scientific article from GKC1, but we now have a more expansive and quality-controlled dataset, so it’s now time to write the second. Read the rest of this entry »

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Tags: data, employment, job, koala, marsupial, part-time, research assistant, technician
Categories : conservation, niche model, South Australia, southern Australia, species distribution model

You know it’s hot when it’s too hot to ….

16 01 2014

My post’s title might be a good candidate title for a punk song in the 2030s (maybe by a re-incarnation of the Dead Kennedys).

I am currently sitting under my solar-powered ceiling fan as Adelaide is declared the world’s hottest city (and not in the funky, cultural, fun way), and I can’t help but contemplate climate change models predicting the fate of biodiversity over the coming decades. Because it’s far, far too hot to work outside, I’m perusing the latest interesting articles on the subject and I came across this recent little gem.

Also recommended on F1000Prime by Ary Hoffman, the paper, Using physiology to predict the responses of ants to climatic warming, by Sarah Diamond and colleagues touches on many aspects of climate predictions that need to be considered. I summarise these briefly here.

While no physiologist, I have dabbled in the past, although up until quite recently I didn’t see that physiology per se had much to do with conservation. It turns out that climate change has spawned an entire sub-discipline called ‘conservation physiology‘, which focuses inter alia on how species can/will/might respond and adapt to a warmer, climatically disrupted world.

What struck me about Diamond & colleagues’ paper was that yet again, it’s not as simple as heat-stressing a species experimentally and making a prediction on its future distribution (ecology is complex). No, the complexity comes in various forms that makes each species a little different from each other. Using North American ant species subjected to various warming scenarios in large (5 m) enclosures, they found the following: Read the rest of this entry »

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Tags: ants, climate change, climate disruption, fitness, foraging, Global warming, niche models, physiology, species distribution models, survival, thermal niche
Categories : bioclimatic envelope, climate change, conservation, decline, ecology, extinction, niche model, species distribution model

Where are they? Finding (and conserving) the biggest fish in the sea

16 11 2011

A post from my PhD student, Ana Sequeira, on her latest paper just out in Diversity and Distributions: Ocean-scale prediction of whale shark distribution.

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The ocean is our major source of water, it stabilises our breathable atmosphere and provides many supplies such as medicines (e.g., anti-cancer therapy drugs¹) and food. Despite its the importance for human life, many marine species are now at a high risk of extinction owing to human changes to the oceans.

The whale shark (Rhincodon typus, Smith 1828) – an icon of the oceans of a spectacularly huge size and docile character – is just one of those species.

Despite being a fish that many people (mainly in Southeast Asia) are happy to have on their plate, whale sharks are worth millions of dollars every year in the ecotourism industry worldwide. One would then expect that being such a profitable species, their ecology would be well known and thoroughly studied.

The reality is quite different.

Basic information on whale sharks such as the whereabouts of their breeding areas, the average number of offspring per female, or even how many individuals still exist, is not currently known. Moreover, despite the genetic evidence that whale sharks worldwide are connected among different oceans, it is unclear if they move from places where they are protected to places where they are still illegally fished.

Information on distribution and patterns of occurrence in space and time is essential for conservation, and can help to save entire ecosystems if used correctly, for example: to isolate important mating and breeding areas.

To identify the whale shark’s seasonal distribution patterns in the Indian Ocean, to test if records follow a decreasing trend over time, and if occurrence is related to variation in climatic signals, we used multivariate distribution models of seasonal and inter-annual whale shark sightings opportunistically collected over 17 years by the tuna purse-seine fishery. Read the rest of this entry »