Title: Sdm: A reproducible and extensible R package for species distribution modelling
Organizers: Babak Naimi
Duration: 9-12 a.m. and 13-16 p.m.
Content
Sdm is a comprehensive modelling and simulation framework that enables fitting of individual
and community-based species distribution models, while supporting markedly different
modelling methods including correlative, process-based (mechanistic), agent-based, and
cellular automata. It generates ensembles of models, and several options for evaluation of
model results and projection of species potential distributions in space and time. The generic
design of sdm is object-oriented making it flexible and amenable to efficient handling of
errors. The object-oriented design also makes it easily extended by users wanting to support
additional models and/or procedures for any of the main steps in species distribution
modelling. sdm employs high performance computing solutions to speed up modelling, and
also provides a graphical user interface (GUI) making it friendly even for users who are not
familiar with R.
The sdm package was co-developed by the organizer of this workshop, and published as a cover
paper in the journal of Ecography (Naimi and Araujo, 2016). The full-day workshop includes
two sessions. In the first session, the concept of species distribution modelling will be
discussed followed by practical exercises to get familiar with the principles of statistical
modelling. In the second session, the sdm R package will be introduced and its capabilities
will be demonstrated. In the third session, the participants will work on a real project followed
by a demonstration of solutions using the sdm R package. It is recommended that the
participants have the latest version of R and rstudio installed on their laptops.
