LM Overview

This unit provides a foundational understanding of how Species Distribution Modeling (SDM) has evolved and the diverse array of algorithms used to map species distributions.

Learning objectives

At the end of this unit you should be able to

• Differentiate between correlative and mechanistic modeling approaches.
• Identify the major families of SDM algorithms.
• Know the origins of the field.
• Recognize why certain technical defaults and evaluation metrics exist today based on historical breakthroughs.
• Explain the strengths and limitations of specific algorithms like MaxEnt, Random Forests, and GLMs.