Course Units

How-to-Advanced-SDM

This course is intended as a blended learning module, although the provided introductions, explanations and examples might be useful for self-study only, too.

01 Basics

Go through a brute force introduction into R, R Markdown, the RStudio IDE to get ready for solving the upcoming assignment problems and submitting your solutions.

02 SDM Basics

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.

03 SDM workflow

This unit provides an introduction to species distribution modeling, covering key steps from data preparation and model training to model quality assessment. It serves as your starting point for understanding and applying species distribution models.

04 Exkurs: Integrating Acoustic Data into SDM

This unit focuses on modeling acoustic detection probability to understand the dynamic “acoustic phenology” of a species. You will learn to integrate bioacoustic recordings with time-series environmental data to predict when and where a species is likely to be heard. By implementing spatial cross-validation and Random Forest classifiers, you will build a robust pipeline to visualize a species’ acoustic footprint across the landscape.

05 SDM evaluation metrics

This unit explores the critical uncertainties inherent in evaluating Species Distribution Models (SDMs) built with presence-only data. You will learn how to navigate the statistical bias introduced when true absence data is missing and how to implement more robust evaluation strategies to ensure your models are reliable for research and nature conservation.

06 Artificial landscapes

In this unit, you will generate artificial landscapes as environmental variables for SDM. You will learn how to construct neutral landscape models (NLMs) and explore designing of realistic environmental patterns. These artificial datasets will be used in the next unit to create virtual species.

07 Virtual species

In this unit, we will focus on virtual species as a tool for testing species distribution models. You will learn how to generate virtual species by defining their ecological preferences, and simulating their distributions. The virtual species will allow you to create controlled experiments to evaluate SDMs in your research project.

08 Your research project

This unit is all about your final team project. Think about your research question and create a project outline as basis for your project. To finish this course it is mandatory to submit the final team project.