Delimiting a species' geographic range using posterior sampling and computational geometry.

ABSTRACT: Accurate delimitation of the geographic range of a species is important for control of biological invasions, conservation of threatened species, and understanding species range dynamics under environmental change. However, estimating range boundaries is challenging because monitoring methods are imperfect, the area that might contain individuals is often incompletely surveyed, and species may have patchy distributions. In these circumstances, large areas can be surveyed without finding individuals despite occupancy extending beyond surveyed areas, resulting in underestimation of range limits. We developed a delimitation method that can be applied with imperfect survey data and patchy distributions. The approach is to construct polygons indicative of the geographic range of a species. Each

SUBMITTER: Keith JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6586837 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature