Improving ecological niche models by data mining large environmental datasets for surrogate models

Abstract WhyWhere is a new ecological niche modeling (ENM) algorithm for mapping and explaining the distribution of species. The algorithm uses image processing methods to efficiently sift through large amounts of data to find the few variables that best predict species occurrence. The purpose of this paper is to describe and justify the main parameterizations and to show preliminary success at rapidly providing accurate, scalable, and simple ENMs. Preliminary results for six species of plants and animals in different regions indicate a significant ( p http://biodi.sdsc.edu/ww_home.html .

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