It has been a hard time for me to come up with a particular theory and conceptual framework for studying the Bengal tiger habitat suitability in one of the national parks of Nepal using Maxent software. My plan is to use tiger and prey species presence points with environmental variables (download from worldclim.org) to analyze the suitable area available for the Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris). Therefore, I need information about the theory and conceptual framework to support my study.
Can anybody help me to address this problem? It will be a great help. Thank you in advance.
Hi, in my view this is a very important question you must answer before starting. The response is strongly variable, depending on what you want to do. I believe that the MAXENT models respond only a part of your question, and you should also explore, other key questions like the movement and home range of the species, use of different kinds of habitats, historical accessibility, etc.
To start, a framework which you should explore is the BAM theory (check Peterson a. T et al. 2011. Ecological Niches and Geographic Distributions. Princeton University Press, Princeton.). Good luck!
Hello Kamal,
It is great to hear that you want to understand the theory and conceptual framework before you engage in use a piece of software. The Maxent webpage (https://biodiversityinformatics.amnh.org/open_source/maxent/) has some really good papers (see towards the end of the webpage and you will find some papers. There is also a lot of discussion about presence only and presence versus absence data in habitat suitability models. I suggest you look for papers that discuss maximum entropy modelling. Roger Baldwin published a paper in 2009 (Baldwin, R.A. Use of Maximum Entropy Modeling in Wildlife Research. Entropy 2009, 11, 854-866.) that has been widely cited. Hope that this information helps!
Thank you Elaheh Daghighi Humberto L. Perotto-Baldivieso Javier Nori for managing your time to go through this post and provide your valuable feedback. It is a great help to me.
Dear Kamal,
May I suggest that you also have a look at Conservation Ecology and Landscape Ecology refs.
Best,
Guy
Hello, there is an abundant literature on the subject :
Article Phillips SJ, Anderson RP, Schapire RE.. Maximum entropy mode...
I think you should also include abitat variables in addition to the WorldClim one ...
the conceptual framework of these models is based on the notion of "ecological niche" .
Hello Kamal,
Check this. This important to you.
Technical Report A training manual for habitat suitability and connectivity m...
Hi Kamal,
here you can check out an innovative and "recently" propose (theory) and framework of environmental suitability of species related to abundance-distance to niche centroid relationship theory "Yañez-Arenas et al., 2020. The Abundant Niche-centroid Hypothesis: Key Points About Unfilled Niches and the Potential Use of Supraspecfic Modeling Units. Biodiversity Informatics 15(3):92-102".
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345829466_The_Abundant_Niche-centroid_Hypothesis_Key_Points_About_Unfilled_Niches_and_the_Potential_Use_of_Supraspecfic_Modeling_Units
I hope that information and related literature to this topic can open your view in this horizon and that it helps.
Bests.
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