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Land facets versus soil composition: how choice of land cover layers impacts species distribution models

Brandon Allen & Ermias Azeria

Overview

The Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI) creates species distribution models (SDM) using two unique land cover layers: the northern vegetation layer and the southern soils layer. SDMs created using the vegetation layer are often robust and show expected relationships between species and their habitats. However, SDMs based on the soils layer often have flat relationships across soil classes (e.g., Tortula acaulon) or have relationships that are challenging to interpret (e.g., Red-winged blackbird in thin break soils). This is, in part, related to the accuracy of soil information (e.g., complex soil polygons) at sites where biological data is collected. As a result, we explored alternatives to the current ABMI soils layer in hopes of improving our species-habitat relationships. This repository contains a bookdown document (https://abbiodiversity.github.io/LandFacets/) describing the details of this analysis.

Acknowledgement

We would like to acknowledge that this work would not be possible without the dedication of the ABMI staff, both past and present. Without our field staff, geospatial experts, taxonomists, and ecologists, we would not be able to perform this work.

Suggested citation

Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute. 2022. Land facets versus soil composition: how choice of land cover layers impacts species distribution models. Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute, Alberta, Canada. (https://abbiodiversity.github.io/LandFacets/)

Contact

For any questions regarding the contents of this repository, please contact Brandon Allen at brandon.allen@ualberta.ca.