Index | II. Stating

Part I. Introduction

Welcome to BioP's user guide. This guide is meant to facilitate the correct and optimal use of the application. BioP is new software designed to predict the potential habitat of a species or a group of species, based on the environment and on points of observations in an area. As opposed to other similar applications, BioP includes in its analysis prior information (expert knowledge on a species' distribution) and sampling bias for a cohort of species. Another difference is that BioP works in a probabilistic (as opposed to deterministic) way; besides calculating the probability of presence for a species in an area, it also calculates the uncertainty of this probability estimate, and the prior potential.


BioP features:

  • Combine multiple catagorized layers or covariables (hereafter called covariables). The files should be in ascii grid format (e.g. from ArcView).
  • Prior information. Expert knowledge about parts of an area where a species is very likely to occur, or very likely not to occur, can be included. This information should be included as ascii grid.
  • Sampling bias (frequency of sampling of an area) can be included, because for example a site close to cities or roads is more likely to be sampled. An ascii grid file with this information can be calculated from a cohort of species observations and a road/city network of the area.
  • BioP can export the results as bitmaps (.bmp), text (.txt), Microsoft Excel (.xls), and ascii grid (.asc).
  • Multiple species can be analysed simultaneously.
  • The program is available in Spanish and English.


I.1. Who is BioP?

The current version of BioP is being developed and maintained by Christian Omar Gomez, with the help of Dr. Andrés Christen, Dr. Miguel Nakamura, and Dr. Maarten Blaauw (all at CIMAT). An earlier version of BioP was produced by Dr. Jorge Argaez (Argaez 2003, Argaez et al. 2005). The module of sampling bias is based on code written by M.Sc. Daniel Fernándes. The development of this project is currently supported by SEMARNAT-CONACYT.

References

Argáez-Sosa, J. 2003. Estimación de la probabilidad de presencia de una especie con base en mediciones de covariables y diseño de zonas para proteger especies. PhD thesis, Centro de Investición en Matemáticas, Guanajuato, Mexico.

Argáez-Sosa, J., Christen, J.A., Nakamura, M. y Soberón, J. 2005. Prediction of high potential areas of habitat for monitored species. Environmental and Ecological Statistics 12, 27-44.


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