Several people wrote Miguel Araújo and Babak Naimi expressing interest in a new edition of the SDM course. In response to those requests a full 10th edition of the course is now scheduled for November the 10th to 16th in Évora, Portugal. Registrations are now open through the usual web page at Casa Morgado Esporão.
Course description
Ecological niche models (ENM), also known as bioclimatic envelope models (BEM), habitat suitability models (HSM), and species distributions models (SDMs), are widely used to infer the ecological requirements of species and to predict their geographic distributions. Such models have been applied to a variety of questions in ecology and evolution, including discovery of new populations of known species, discovery of previously unknown species, spatial conservation prioritisation, assessment of potential geographic ranges of invasive species, mapping risk of disease transmission, forecasting the effects of climate change on species distributions and on phylogenetic diversity, and identifying historical refugia for biodiversity. There are also applications in archaeology, agriculture and forestry, risks management from bioterrorism, epidemiology, etc.
The 10th edition of the course “Species distributions models: concepts, methods, applications, and challenges” introduces the fundamental concepts underpinning ecological niche models (ENM), describes some of the most prominent methods currently in use, and discusses the strengths and limitations of these models for different applications. The course gives equal weight to theory and application. The students will have the opportunity to learn how to run ENM with the new SDM R platform (Naimi & Araújo 2016 Ecography) and they will be asked to bring their own data (if such data are not available we can provide our own data). In one of the course days students will analyse their data and prepare a small report for discussion in the class. The proposed course was originally developed as at the Imperial College London (2014). Henceforth we have been running the course in Évora (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023). It also builds on slightly shorter earlier courses developed by Miguel Araújo at the University of Copenhagen and Estación Biologica de Doñana (CSIC).
Course Objectives
By the end of the course, students will be equipped to:
1. Understand the theoretical underpinnings of ecological niche models
2. Understand the strengths and limitations of ecological niche models in the context of different uses
3. Be able to correctly design an ecological niche modelling study for a variety of uses
4. Get started with ecological niche modelling using SDM R.