Contents

Single-species Analysis

A typical BiotaPhy workflow to analyze data for single species consists of computing a Species Distribution Model (SDM), and producing maps of potential habitat from these models. Inputs must include:

  • Occurrence Data for a single species or taxa. Species data may be from the BiotaPhy data library (usually a data aggregator, such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF, www.gbif.org)
  • A Modeling Scenario is a set of Environmental Layers corresponding to the approximate time period of the species data (distant past, or current day). BiotaPhy makes available Global Climate data for past, current, and future time periods from Worldclim.
  • One or more matching projection Scenarios. BiotaPhy applies the computed model onto these projection scenarios to creates maps of habitat in which the species may thrive. Matching scenarios are explained further below.

The inputs are analyzed with the MaxEnt species distribution modeling algorithm to compute the relationship between species occurrences and environmental values. Parameters may be set to fine tune the MaxEnt algorithm, or the defaults accepted.

User submission for scenarios is not currently enabled. If you have environmental layers that you would like to use for SDM computation, we are happy to work with you to assemble metadata and layers into a package for computations in BiotaPhy.

To request an SDM computation, a user will choose or upload an Occurrence dataset, choose a modeling Scenario and one or more projection Scenarios, and optionally modify the default MaxEnt algorithm parameters.