Habitat Modeling - Assignment & Deliverables

ENV 761 - Landscape GIS   |   Spring 2024   |   Instructors: Peter Cada & John Fay  |   
Due 1-Mar

You have now completed two habitat models for the pigmy salamander. Your assignment is to compile your methods, analysis, results, and model interpretations into a brief report. Components of this report are outlined below; this is to streamline your write-up so that you can concentrate on the relevant analysis and not worry as much about getting your presentation perfect. Do, however, pay attention to the requirements of each as failure to submit anything asked for will likely lead to a deduction. The report need not follow any strict format other than providing what is requested in an organized fashion. (If in doubt, think of any means possible that will make your grader make grading your assignment more easy. A disorganized submission will certainly make him or her cranky in a hurry…)

Overview

  • Begin your report with a brief section (one or two paragraphs) summarizing information on the pigmy salamander that may be relevant for modeling its habitat. While this does not have to be exhaustive for this analysis (the points made in the lab description will suffice), do examine a few of the web sites provided and be sure to cite where the information you mentioned was obtained (a website URL or paper citation is fine).

Environmental layer development

  • Distance to streams analysis. Submit a figure of the geoprocessing model used to calculate distance from stream. This does not have to be in color, but make sure it is legible.

  • Focal forest maps. Create a 3-panel map showing the GAP cover types used in creating your “focal forest” layers (classes 63, 84, & 96) as well as the 150 m focal forest and the 400 m focal forest results. Points will not be deducted for cartographic details on this figure; I just want to visually inspect that your maps to see they were created correctly. There’s no need to add a scale bar, north arrow, legend, etc. Just make sure each map is clearly labeled and clipped to the extent of the study area. Don’t spend too much time making this map pretty, and it can be a grayscale map (as long as the maps convey their relevant information).

Rule-based analysis

  • Create a grayscale figure displaying your rule-based model result for the study area. This time, be sure to include a scale bar, north arrow, legend, projection information, your name and date in the figure. Also indicate (in words) the criteria used in modeling the habitat and the total area of habitat created, in $km^2$. (Be sure to use meaningful names, not just data names, e.g. “elevation” not “NED30”. Include (for reference) the salamander locations on this map and a graticule, if you know how.

  • In support of your rule-based analysis, provide a map showing the number of criteria in the rule equations that each pixel in the study area meets. (For example a value of zero indicates that the pixel meets none of the 4 criteria; use the method described in step 2b above to create this map.) Include all the cartographic elements mentioned in the other rule-based map. Also, describe anything you can discern in this map. For example, can you guess which rule layers tend to be filtering out most of the habitat and which seem mostly redundant? What are the relative proportions of pixels meeting 3 criteria to those meeting 4?

MaxEnt analysis

  • Create a grayscale figure displaying your MaxEnt derived habitat likelihood result for the study area. Use darker shades to represent higher likelihoods of finding the pigmy salamander. Be sure to include a scale bar, north arrow, legend, projection information, your name and date in the figure.
  • Include the MaxEnt jackknife figure with a brief description of what it shows in terms of each different variable’s contribution to the gain. What does the jackknife figure tell you about which variables are important to the model?
  • Present the dependence response curves (not the marginal ones) for distance to stream, elevation and mean temperature of the coldest month. Describe any patterns you see in each in terms of how each might influence salamander habitat.
  • Create a figure displaying your MaxEnt habitat classification map. Include the same cartographic elements as the previous MaxEnt map. Indicate the threshold used and the total area of habitat predicted. Also, include the salamander presence and pseudo absence points on this map; clearly labeling or symbolizing which points are presence and which are absence.
  • Generate a confusion matrix from the MaxEnt habitat classification. Describe how you might make your model more sensitive and how this would change the values in your matrix. Repeat for if you made your model more specific.
  • Compute a confusion matrix for your rule-based result using the presence/pseudo-absence data you generated in this lab. Create a table of false negatives and their distance to the nearest habitat pixel. Do any misclassified salamander presence points appear close to predicted habitat? What might this suggest?
►►WHEN FINISHED, PLEASE CLEAN UP YOUR WORKSPACE...◄◄
  • Delete your National Map, PRISMdata, and SEREgionalGAP folders; these can be extracted from the zip file on Canvas quite easily.
  • Delete your ASCII folder containing MaxEnt inputs. This can be recreated easily.
  • Clear out your scratch folder
  • Delete or zip up your EnvLayers folder/geodatabase .
  • Remove any other extraneous files. They should all be easily reproducible with your models.