Influence of Point Count Length and Repeated Visits on Habitat Model Performance

1999 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 815 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randy Dettmers ◽  
David A. Buehler ◽  
John G. Bartlett ◽  
Nathan A. Klaus
The Auk ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 123 (4) ◽  
pp. 1038-1051 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen R. Hale

Abstract Satellite imagery was used to model the distribution and abundance of Bicknell's Thrush (Catharus bicknelli) in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Image-derived data for live softwood shrub density, standing dead-tree basal area, distance to nearest fir-shrub cover type, along with a digital elevation model and point-count data, were used to supply regressor estimates in a multivariate logistic habitat model that was constructed from field vegetation sampling and point-count data. Spatially explicit predictions of probability of Bicknell's Thrush presence were made for each 28.5 × 28.5 m-pixel covering 70,000 ha. A model validation procedure using observations independent from model calibration revealed no difference (P > 0.05) between modeled and observed estimates of Bicknell's Thrush presence within probability deciles 0 to <0.1, 0.1 to <0.2, 0.2 to <0.3, 0.3 to <0.4, 0.5 to <0.6, and 0.6 to <0.7 with respective densities (40 ha−1) of 0.5, 1.6, 2.8, 4.1, 7.3, and 9.4. Transforming probabilities into relative abundance produced an estimated 4,900 Bicknell's Thrushes across the study area. Habitats supporting the highest density of Bicknell's Thrushes were predicted to be at the uppermost elevations. However, abundance estimates decreased even as density increased, owing to decreasing amounts of habitat area with increasing elevation, and suggested that lower-elevation, low-density habitats may support a significant fraction of Bicknell's Thrushes. Utilisation de l'Imagerie Satellitaire afin de Modéliser la Distribution et l'Abondance de Catharus bicknelli dans les White Mountains du New Hampshire


2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-43
Author(s):  
Thai Son Le ◽  
Pham Thi Kim Thoa ◽  
Nguyen Van Tuan

Abstract Incursions of Mimosa pigra L., a super-invasive plant, were detected in Hoa Vang district, Da Nang city, Vietnam. This invasive species posed threats to the local agricultural and natural areas, especially to Ba Na - Nui Chua Nature Reserve located in the district. In this study, a habitat model was developed to predict potential areas for the upcoming occurrences of the plant. Detected locations of the species were analyzed in association with seven environmental layers (15 m spatial resolution), which characterized the habitat conditions facilitating the plant incursion, to calculate a multivariate statistic, Mahalanobis distance (D2). Mimosa occurrences were divided into subsets of modelling (for model construction) and validating data (for selecting the best model from replicate runs). The model performance was tested using a null model of 1,000 random points and indicated a significant relationship between D2 values and mimosa occurrence. The D2 model performed markedly better than the random model. The null model in combination with the entire dataset of mimosa locations was also used to identify the threshold D2 value. Using that threshold value, 99.5% of existing mimosa locations were detected and 20.3% of the study area was determined as high-risk areas for mimosa occurrence. These identified high risk areas would make an important contribution to the local alien invasive species management. Given the potential threats to these species from illegal harvesting, that information may serve as an important benchmark for future habitat and population assessments. The spatial modelling techniques in this study can easily be applied to other species and areas.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elliott L. Hazen ◽  
Briana Abrahms ◽  
Stephanie Brodie ◽  
Gemma Carroll ◽  
Heather Welch ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Habitat suitability models give insight into the ecological drivers of species distributions and are increasingly common in management and conservation planning. Telemetry data can be used in habitat models to describe where animals were present, however this requires the use of presence-only modeling approaches or the generation of ‘pseudo-absences’ to simulate locations where animals did not go. To highlight considerations for generating pseudo-absences for telemetry-based habitat models, we explored how different methods of pseudo-absence generation affect model performance across species’ movement strategies, model types, and environments. Methods We built habitat models for marine and terrestrial case studies, Northeast Pacific blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) and African elephants (Loxodonta africana). We tested four pseudo-absence generation methods commonly used in telemetry-based habitat models: (1) background sampling; (2) sampling within a buffer zone around presence locations; (3) correlated random walks beginning at the tag release location; (4) reverse correlated random walks beginning at the last tag location. Habitat models were built using generalised linear mixed models, generalised additive mixed models, and boosted regression trees. Results We found that the separation in environmental niche space between presences and pseudo-absences was the single most important driver of model explanatory power and predictive skill. This result was consistent across marine and terrestrial habitats, two species with vastly different movement syndromes, and three different model types. The best-performing pseudo-absence method depended on which created the greatest environmental separation: background sampling for blue whales and reverse correlated random walks for elephants. However, despite the fact that models with greater environmental separation performed better according to traditional predictive skill metrics, they did not always produce biologically realistic spatial predictions relative to known distributions. Conclusions Habitat model performance may be positively biased in cases where pseudo-absences are sampled from environments that are dissimilar to presences. This emphasizes the need to carefully consider spatial extent of the sampling domain and environmental heterogeneity of pseudo-absence samples when developing habitat models, and highlights the importance of scrutinizing spatial predictions to ensure that habitat models are biologically realistic and fit for modeling objectives.


2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 928-937
Author(s):  
Henry Ndaimani ◽  
Amon Murwira ◽  
Mhosisi Masocha

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (3S) ◽  
pp. 802-805 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marieke Pronk ◽  
Janine F. J. Meijerink ◽  
Sophia E. Kramer ◽  
Martijn W. Heymans ◽  
Jana Besser

Purpose The current study aimed to identify factors that distinguish between older (50+ years) hearing aid (HA) candidates who do and do not purchase HAs after having gone through an HA evaluation period (HAEP). Method Secondary data analysis of the SUpport PRogram trial was performed ( n = 267 older, 1st-time HA candidates). All SUpport PRogram participants started an HAEP shortly after study enrollment. Decision to purchase an HA by the end of the HAEP was the outcome of interest of the current study. Participants' baseline covariates (22 in total) were included as candidate predictors. Multivariable logistic regression modeling (backward selection and reclassification tables) was used. Results Of all candidate predictors, only pure-tone average (average of 1, 2, and 4 kHz) hearing loss emerged as a significant predictor (odds ratio = 1.03, 95% confidence interval [1.03, 1.17]). Model performance was weak (Nagelkerke R 2 = .04, area under the curve = 0.61). Conclusions These data suggest that, once HA candidates have decided to enter an HAEP, factors measured early in the help-seeking journey do not predict well who will and will not purchase an HA. Instead, factors that act during the HAEP may hold this predictive value. This should be examined.


Author(s):  
Charles A. Doan ◽  
Ronaldo Vigo

Abstract. Several empirical investigations have explored whether observers prefer to sort sets of multidimensional stimuli into groups by employing one-dimensional or family-resemblance strategies. Although one-dimensional sorting strategies have been the prevalent finding for these unsupervised classification paradigms, several researchers have provided evidence that the choice of strategy may depend on the particular demands of the task. To account for this disparity, we propose that observers extract relational patterns from stimulus sets that facilitate the development of optimal classification strategies for relegating category membership. We conducted a novel constrained categorization experiment to empirically test this hypothesis by instructing participants to either add or remove objects from presented categorical stimuli. We employed generalized representational information theory (GRIT; Vigo, 2011b , 2013a , 2014 ) and its associated formal models to predict and explain how human beings chose to modify these categorical stimuli. Additionally, we compared model performance to predictions made by a leading prototypicality measure in the literature.


2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lech W. Szajdak ◽  
Jerzy Lipiec ◽  
Anna Siczek ◽  
Artur Nosalewicz ◽  
Urszula Majewska

Abstract The aim of this study was to verify first-order kinetic reaction rate model performance in predicting of leaching of atrazine and inorganic compounds (K+1, Fe+3, Mg+2, Mn+2, NH4 +, NO3 - and PO4 -3) from tilled and orchard silty loam soils. This model provided an excellent fit to the experimental concentration changes of the compounds vs. time data during leaching. Calculated values of the first-order reaction rate constants for the changes of all chemicals were from 3.8 to 19.0 times higher in orchard than in tilled soil. Higher first-order reaction constants for orchard than tilled soil correspond with both higher total porosity and contribution of biological pores in the former. The first order reaction constants for the leaching of chemical compounds enables prediction of the actual compound concentration and the interactions between compound and soil as affected by management system. The study demonstrates the effectiveness of simultaneous chemical and physical analyses as a tool for the understanding of leaching in variously managed soils.


Author(s):  
Michael Withnall ◽  
Edvard Lindelöf ◽  
Ola Engkvist ◽  
Hongming Chen

We introduce Attention and Edge Memory schemes to the existing Message Passing Neural Network framework for graph convolution, and benchmark our approaches against eight different physical-chemical and bioactivity datasets from the literature. We remove the need to introduce <i>a priori</i> knowledge of the task and chemical descriptor calculation by using only fundamental graph-derived properties. Our results consistently perform on-par with other state-of-the-art machine learning approaches, and set a new standard on sparse multi-task virtual screening targets. We also investigate model performance as a function of dataset preprocessing, and make some suggestions regarding hyperparameter selection.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhaokai Dong ◽  
Daniel Bain ◽  
Murat Akcakaya ◽  
Carla Ng

A high-quality parameter set is essential for reliable stormwater models. Model performance can be improved by optimizing initial parameter estimates. Parameter sensitivity analysis is a robust way to distinguish the influence of parameters on model output and efficiently target the most important parameters to modify. This study evaluates efficient construction of a sewershed model using relatively low-resolution (e.g., 30 meter DEM) data and explores model sensitivity to parameters and regional characteristics using the EPA’s Storm Water Management Model (SWMM). A SWMM model was developed for a sewershed in the City of Pittsburgh, where stormwater management is a critical concern. We assumed uniform or log-normal distributions for parameters and used Monte Carlo simulations to explore and rank the influence of parameters on predicted surface runoff, peak flow, maximum pipe flow and model performance, as measured using the Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency metric. By using the Thiessen polygon approach for sub-catchment delineations, we substantially simplified the parameterization of the areas and hydraulic parameters. Despite this simplification, our approach provided good agreement with monitored pipe flow (Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency: 0.41 – 0.85). Total runoff and peak flow were very sensitive to the model discretization. The size of the polygons (modeled subcatchment areas) and imperviousness had the most influence on both outputs. The imperviousness, infiltration and Manning’s roughness (in the pervious area) contributed strongly to the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (70%), as did pipe geometric parameters (92%). Parameter rank sets were compared by using kappa statistics between any two model elements to identify generalities. Within our relatively large (9.7 km^2) sewershed, optimizing parameters for the highly impervious (&gt;50%) areas and larger pipes lower in the network contributed most to improving Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency. The geometric parameters influence the water quantity distribution and flow conveyance, while imperviousness determines the subcatchment subdivision and influences surface water generation. Application of the Thiessen polygon approach can simplify the construction of large-scale urban storm water models, but the model is sensitive to the sewer network configuration and care must be taken in parameterizing areas (polygons) with heterogenous land uses.


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