I am planning to study the distribution of a species through statistical methods. Can any one suggest a good and convenient method for my study is very useful to me.
Hi Sisubalan, if you need to map the species and link data, you should use some GIS tools (GvSIG, Quantum GIS, ArcGIS). It will provide you a integrated view and you also could do statistical visualization.
What type of distribution ? Geographic distribution OR Ecological distribution !
There are several modeling are available for the geographic distribution of plant species in terms of climatic and edaphic factors. Kindly go though the following references:
1. Wu, H., & Huffer, F. R. W. (1997). Modelling the distribution of plant species using the autologistic regression model. Environmental and Ecological Statistics, 4(1), 31-48.
2. Austin, M. P. (2002). Spatial prediction of species distribution: an interface between ecological theory and statistical modelling. Ecological modelling, 157(2), 101-118.
3. Guisan, A., Theurillat, J. P., & Kienast, F. (1998). Predicting the potential distribution of plant species in an alpine environment. Journal of Vegetation Science, 9(1), 65-74.
For ecological distribution, is the manner in which a plant is spatially arrange.The pattern of distribution is not permanent for each species. Distribution patterns can change seasonally, in response to the availability of resources, and also depending on the scale at which they are viewed. Dispersion usually takes place at the time of reproduction.
There are three basic types of population distribution within an area: uniform, random and clumped.
1. Sagar, R., Raghubanshi, A. S., & Singh, J. S. (2003). Tree species composition, dispersion and diversity along a disturbance gradient in a dry tropical forest region of India. Forest Ecology and Management, 186(1), 61-71.
2. Condit, R., Ashton, P. S., Baker, P., Bunyavejchewin, S., Gunatilleke, S., Gunatilleke, N., ... & Yamakura, T. (2000). Spatial patterns in the distribution of tropical tree species. Science, 288(5470), 1414-1418.
If you are interested in species distribution models you may check the review by Guisan and Thuiller in 2005 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2005.00792.x/abstract. One main issue, but not the only one, is selecting the statistical method, you will find many references to the comparison by Elith et al. (2006) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2006.0906-7590.04596.x/abstract were some novel methods outperformed the classic Generalized Linear Model (GLM) approach. In you prefer GLM you can get similar performance if you apply regularization (e,g, my 2011 paper https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236870185_Modelling_species_distributions_with_penalised_logistic_regressions_A_comparison_with_maximum_entropy_models )
Article Modelling species distributions with penalised logistic regr...