TODAY: EGS Seminar – Tuesday 28th February 2012

Tuesday 28th February, E34, John Dalton East Building, from 1.00-2.00pm.

Sandwiches, coffee and tea are available from 12.30 pm in room E324.


Predicting Species Diversity: Woody Plant and Bird Species Richness in Kenya
Dr Richard Field, University of Nottingham


There is widespread misuse of the word ‘prediction’ in biogeography, particularly when talking about the fitted values of correlational statistical models. There has been surprisingly little emphasis on prediction in biogeographical research, despite the increasing concern over how the biotic world will respond to environmental change. Where this is attempted, various approaches are used, but recently the most common by far is using species distribution models. While I will discuss these, my focus will be on work I have done, with colleagues from Oxford and Mainz (Germany), on predicting emergent species richness and its patterning. The main geographical focus is Kenya – its birds and trees. In presenting this empirical work, I will discuss the associated challenges for predicting species diversity both generally and for species distributions models specifically.