Environmental variables: how to download and process them with R

It will be taught using a combination of live (synchronous) sessions on Zoom and Slack.

The live sessions will be recorded and available to the participants for a limited period of time. However, attendance at the live sessions is required.

Course overview

Georeferenced maps of environmental variables are currently essential for a range of ecological and biogeographical analyses, from species distribution and ecological niche models to global biodiversity trends. Such maps are now widely available in multiple online sources, although they often need to be processed to become compatible with each other and with the remaining data in the analysis (e.g. species occurrence or abundance).

In this short course, we will use a range of tools to

1) Import maps of climatic, topographic and anthropogenic variables from various sources into R (e.g. WorldClim, ENVIREM, CHELSA, AquaMaps, MARSPEC, Bio-ORACLE, SEDAC, CORINE)

2) Obtain the values of these variables for point locations (e.g. species occurrence sites, random background samples) and for polygons (e.g. grid cells, provinces and other spatial divisions

3) Try out different ways of converting categorical variables to continuous form, including proportions and distances

4) Adjust the spatial extent and resolution of different maps, so that they appropriately match each other as well as additional data in the analysis.

The course will be highly interactive and will include both theoretical and practical sessions. Participants are welcome to try working with variables of their own interest, although several illustrative examples will be provided too.

Requirements

Participants should have previous basic experience with R, a computer (Linux, Windows or MacOS) preferably with a webcam, and a good internet connection. A recent version of R will be needed, and RStudio is also recommended.

[email protected]

English

Places are limited to18 participants and will be occupied by strict registration order.

Participants who have completed the course will receive a certificate at the end of it.

Online live sessions on Wednesday and Thursday, from 15:00 to 19:00 (Madrid time zone).

Instructor