"The Future of Species Distribution Modeling" Dr. Dan Warren

Dr. Dan Warren

DECRA Research Fellow

Macquarie University

Abstract

In species distribution modeling (SDM), museum collection records are combined with climate data in order to make statistical estimates of species' ecological tolerances.  These models are used to study the evolution of the ecological niche, estimate the future impacts of introduced species, study the spread of vector-borne diseases, and estimate the effects of climate change on threatened and endangered species.  In this talk, Dr. Warren will first present a brief overview of some of his contributions to this active literature, including several methodological innovations that are now standard approaches in the field.  Following that, he will explore some of the key conceptual and methodological problems that are impeding progress in SDM studies, and will argue that evolutionary approaches to SDM that he and his colleagues are currently developing will alleviate some of these issues.

Biography

Dan Warren works broadly across evolution, ecology, and conservation science.  He received his Ph.D. in Population Biology from The University of California at Davis in 2009, and since then has been awarded internationally competitive postdoctoral fellowships from the National Science Foundation and the Australian Research Council.  He is currently an ARC DECRA fellow at Macquarie University in Sydney Australia, working on methods for incorporating evolutionary history into statistical models of species spatial distributions and environmental tolerances.  He is an author of several widely-used computational tools in evolution and ecology, including ENMTools, AWTY, and RWTY.