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URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.9gvh3w6

Authors: Joshua Fuller

Summary: A necessary, but difficult, part of ecology and conservations is to try to create order and meaning from chaos. An example of such a task is the need to predict where an organism may exist at any given point in a landscape. In the past, this was done by systematically surveying the entire landscape, a lengthy and expensive endeavor. With the current pace of habitat loss and climate change, new methods were created to efficiently determine the distribution of a species using computers and new statistical algorithms. These new methods still require people in the field taking GPS points of the target species. A way to ease the workload on researchers in the field is to use data generated through citizen science projects such as iNaturalist. Citizen scientists can rapidly generate a tremendous amount of species GPS points by just exploring parks and backyards. That data can be directly utilized by researchers to create a species distribution model (SDM). The goal of this protocol is to take that a step further by generating an SDM for a plant, Tsuga canadensis, and then using that model to determine the distribution of an invasive specialist, Adelges tsugae, on the plant. By the end of this protocol, you should be able to create an SDM, generate a map using GIS software, and critically evaluate the results of the model to determine any conclusions that can be drawn from the model.

Affiliations: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Version: 1

Publication Date: 2020

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