University of Twente Student Theses
Amphibian Species Distribution Modelling in Poland
Lai, Jinjin (2009) Amphibian Species Distribution Modelling in Poland.
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| Abstract: | The population decline of amphibians has become a worldwide attention during the past decades. To protect the endangered species, niche modelling has been used as a powerful tool of evaluating a species' potential habitat and identifying most important environmental variables for amphibian species. Based on this knowledge, proper conservation activities can be proposed to maintain amphibian species population. Maximum Entropy Species Distribution Model (Maxent) was applied to predict amphibian species distribution by using species presence-only observation data in combination with environmental variables. The potential distribution was modelled for 18 amphibian species in Poland using maximum 22 different environmental predictors. The most important factors turned out to be precipitation and soil temperature variables. Especially, soil temperature variables had great impact on both variables’ relative importance to the model and predicted species spatial distribution. Aside from these variables, altitude, classified NDVI, insolation and proximity to pond also appeared to be considerable to explain amphibian species distribution. Furthermore, the predicted species richness distribution was compared with the know species range from survey data. In general, potential habitat corresponded to the expected species range but it covered much broader suitable habitat area than the survey range. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Master) |
| Faculty: | ITC: Faculty of Geo-information Science and Earth Observation |
| Programme: | Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation MSc (75014) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/92699 |
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