BES Facebook pageBES Annual Meeting 2010
7 - 9 September,
University of Leeds, UK
Can Species Distribution Modelling be Predictive?
Drew Purves and Greg McInerny
Species distribution modelling constitutes a very grand challenge: to predict where species are, will be in the future and have been in the past. The key constraints to moving from descriptive to predictive models has been the low coherence between model assumptions and the rest of ecological understanding, alongside low availability of appropriate data. With researchers who have examined the constraints through novel theoretical, technical and practical methods - the thematic will examine the importance of micro-ecological processes in macro-ecological analyses and examine what methods might draw us nearer to predictive models of species distributions.
Keynote speaker:
Jorge Soberon, University of Kansas, USA
Calculation of areas of distribution of species has exploded in the last 15 years. Much of the work has concentrated on developing the correlative methods of calculation. Here I will discuss a causal scheme for modelling species distribution based on ecological, historical and evolutionary factors. This sheds light on the conceptual basis of the field and highlights the need of approaching it from the perspective of Grey's paradigm of data intensive science.
Invited speakers:
Bob O'Hara, University of Helsinki, Finland
Justin Travis, University of Aberdeen, UK
Drew Purves, Microsoft Research, UK
Chris Thomas, University of York, UK
If you have any comments or questions about this thematic topice, please contact Greg directly.
