Review of Key Papers & Desktop GARP Demo made it exciting!
The Eco-Informatics Centre’s just concluded workshop on Ecological Niche Modeling (ENM), gave practical advice on how to use ENM tools efficiently. The workshop was conducted by Prof Townsend Peterson, a leader in this field from the University of Kansas, USA and Dr Shaily Menon from Grant Valley State University, USA. This one day event program was h
eld at Doddi’s Resort on 31 August, 2007 and was attended by 35 researchers including those from Centre for Ecological Science (CES), National Centre for Biological Science (NCBS), National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) and ATREE.
In the first half of the session, Prof Peterson gave a broad perspective of ENM with interesting examples that ranged from predicting the distribution of Ebola virus in Africa to estimating species distribution of butterflies in Canada. Later, he explained step by step, key factors that are important while conducting ENM studies. With reference to environmental data, he stressed the importance of data quality, type, source and methods of data collectio
n. Regarding occurrence data, he explained how important it is to distinguish between primary and secondary sources. He cited GBIF, MaNIS, ORNIS, HerpNet, FishNet2 and MODIS satellite data as some useful reference sources for data. This was followed by a detailed evaluation of best model selection, modeling algorithms and validation. He also reviewed key papers in the field which gave a clear overview of how the entire field has evolved. Later, Dr Shaily Menon presented her work on ecological and geographic distribution of Asian nuthatches.
In the afternoon session, Prof Peterson, demonstrated desktop GARP (Genetic Algorithm for Rule-set Production), and Maxent (Maximum Entropy Algorithm), the two modeling algorithms in ENM. He reviewed the strengths and weaknesses of the different modeling algorithms. This workshop was a refresher for those who are already doing research in ENM. For new comers, it gave a simplified understanding of concepts and technical know how.
The Eco-Informatics Centre’s just concluded workshop on Ecological Niche Modeling (ENM), gave practical advice on how to use ENM tools efficiently. The workshop was conducted by Prof Townsend Peterson, a leader in this field from the University of Kansas, USA and Dr Shaily Menon from Grant Valley State University, USA. This one day event program was h
eld at Doddi’s Resort on 31 August, 2007 and was attended by 35 researchers including those from Centre for Ecological Science (CES), National Centre for Biological Science (NCBS), National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) and ATREE.In the first half of the session, Prof Peterson gave a broad perspective of ENM with interesting examples that ranged from predicting the distribution of Ebola virus in Africa to estimating species distribution of butterflies in Canada. Later, he explained step by step, key factors that are important while conducting ENM studies. With reference to environmental data, he stressed the importance of data quality, type, source and methods of data collectio
n. Regarding occurrence data, he explained how important it is to distinguish between primary and secondary sources. He cited GBIF, MaNIS, ORNIS, HerpNet, FishNet2 and MODIS satellite data as some useful reference sources for data. This was followed by a detailed evaluation of best model selection, modeling algorithms and validation. He also reviewed key papers in the field which gave a clear overview of how the entire field has evolved. Later, Dr Shaily Menon presented her work on ecological and geographic distribution of Asian nuthatches.In the afternoon session, Prof Peterson, demonstrated desktop GARP (Genetic Algorithm for Rule-set Production), and Maxent (Maximum Entropy Algorithm), the two modeling algorithms in ENM. He reviewed the strengths and weaknesses of the different modeling algorithms. This workshop was a refresher for those who are already doing research in ENM. For new comers, it gave a simplified understanding of concepts and technical know how.
