Correlations Between Climate Variables and Amphibian Diversity of Florida
Academic Level at Time of Presentation
Graduate
Major
Environmental and Earth Sciences
List all Project Mentors & Advisor(s)
Dr. Haluk Cetin
Presentation Format
Poster Presentation
Abstract/Description
The distribution of organisms across the surface of the earth is due to, amongst other things, various physical factors such as temperature and precipitation. The precise relationships between these factors and the diversity of organisms can be analyzed using Geographic Information Systems. A dataset of the ranges of the amphibians of Florida was obtained from the IUCN Red List Spatial Data Download site. This dataset of range polygons was then converted to a raster dataset detailing the total number of amphibian species occurring in each cell. These species diversity values were regressed against various geophysical variables (annual precipitation, mean temperature, etc.) obtained from the WorldClim Global Climate dataset. The correlation between the various variables and species diversity was noted. This methodology has various applications, such as using predicted values for the different variables to estimate amphibian diversity in the past or future.
Fall Scholars Week 2018 Event
Earth and Environmental Sciences Poster Session
Correlations Between Climate Variables and Amphibian Diversity of Florida
The distribution of organisms across the surface of the earth is due to, amongst other things, various physical factors such as temperature and precipitation. The precise relationships between these factors and the diversity of organisms can be analyzed using Geographic Information Systems. A dataset of the ranges of the amphibians of Florida was obtained from the IUCN Red List Spatial Data Download site. This dataset of range polygons was then converted to a raster dataset detailing the total number of amphibian species occurring in each cell. These species diversity values were regressed against various geophysical variables (annual precipitation, mean temperature, etc.) obtained from the WorldClim Global Climate dataset. The correlation between the various variables and species diversity was noted. This methodology has various applications, such as using predicted values for the different variables to estimate amphibian diversity in the past or future.