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Poslední úprava: RNDr. Veronika Sacherová, Ph.D. (08.04.2013)
observed patterns. Biodiversity observed patterns, and specially species richness latitudinal gradient, is one of the main patterns that macroecologists seek to completely explain. Current climate, energy, historic contrains, biotic interactions or niche conservatism are some of the factors that have been related to the observed species richness patterns. The main goal of this course is to give the students theoretical and practical tools to propose and answer macroecological questions. |
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Poslední úprava: RNDr. Veronika Sacherová, Ph.D. (16.04.2013)
To end this course, we are going to do a practical lesson. Students should answer a macroecological/biogeographical question by: 1.- Downloading the biological information from an open access data base 2.- Constructing a species distribution model 3.- Interpreting their results |
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Poslední úprava: RNDr. Veronika Sacherová, Ph.D. (08.04.2013)
This first section is to learn the basics of R. Installing R and RStudio, work with R Objects, do mathematical operations, learn how to select elements from an object, learn how to add elements to an object, learn how to import and save our data, learn how to draw simple plots and save them, learn basic loops, learn how to work using R libraries and functions. 2 Open access biodiversity data bases Different open access biodiversity data bases are available on the internet. These biodiversity data bases contain specifc information about species, in- cluding geo-referenced occurrences. There are general databases, like GBIF or IUCN. Palaeontological databases, like Paleobiology database, NOW or Neotoma. Fish data bases, like FishBase. Plant or vegetation databases, like SIVIM or ANTHOS, etc. This is the frst time that these data are acces- sible and ready to use for a single ecologist. Using this global biodiversity information we could be able to answer large scale ecological questions and, as a result, macroecological studies are increasing their number exponentially. Here, we are going to discuss the specific problems of those data bases, namely; spatial, temporal and taxonomic biases. Besides, we are going to learn how to download this data from the internet using R. 3 Environmental Data Variables such as climatic conditions, altitude, pH, land cover, etc. are also available in GIS format. Combining the biodiversity data from the open access data bases and those environmental variables, we can investigate and answer macroecological and biogeographical observed patterns. Specifically, we are going to discuss the differences between WorldClim layers and General Circulation Models (GCM) layers. Besides, we are going to learn how to download and use this information using R libraries. 4 Species distribution models Species distribution models (SDM) are one of the different kinds of spatial models that we can construct. SDM are used to predict the geographic distribution of a species in relation to its climatic requirements. There are several statistic and mathematic methods to construct those models. Here, we are going to learn some of them, including Bioclim, Domain, GLM/GAM, BRT, Maxent and Mahalanobis distances. 5 Develop your own spatial prediction To end this course, we are going to do a practical lesson. Students should answer a macroecological/biogeographical question by: 1.- Downloading the biological information from an open access data base 2.- Constructing a species distribution model 3.- Interpreting their results 6 Oral presentations Oral presentation and discussion of the students exercises.
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