Good Afternoon Geographers, Sustainers, and Friends of the Department,
I wanted to let you know about a webinar coming up on Thursday February 25 from 1:00 - 2:00 pm ET on using GIS for species modeling. You need to be a TNGIC member to get the Zoom details (registration is free for students). Sign up at
https://www.tngic.org/ and you'll also be registered for this year's virtual TNGIC conference. You are not under any obligation to attend.
Details about the webinar below.
Utilizing Species Distribution Modeling for Conservation Management in the Tennessee Landscape
Nyssa Hunt, UT Chattanooga Interdisciplinary Geospatial Technology Lab (IGTLab) and Courtney Alley, Georgia Department of Natural Resources
Field surveying for species presence throughout the vast Tennessee landscape is both time consuming and costly, especially with the amount of biodiversity. Whether the goal is to find a rare species or to manage invasive ones, locating
species of interest tend to follow similar basic methods. With species distribution modeling (SDM), efforts can be more efficiently placed when habitat suitability guides researchers. In this workshop, two research examples – modeling for Barking Treefrog
(Hyla gratiosa) and Tennessee invasive plants - are portrayed, in which the machine learning program Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) was mainly used to produce SDMs. The process of selecting suitable data, preparing it for modeling, executing a model, and analyzing
model results will be discussed, along with the usability of the models the co-presenters have produced in their respective research.
Speaker Bios:
Nyssa has spent most of her life in Chattanooga, TN, where her family moved after her father retired from the Navy. In 2014 she earned her Bachelor’s in Environmental Science - with a concentration in Geographic and Cartographic Sciences
- from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and went on to complete her Master’s in Environmental Science in 2018. Her thesis focused on predictive modeling to analyze potential presence and suitable habitat for Barking Treefrog in Tennessee, and has
henceforth advised multiple grad students on predictive modeling methods for their own research. She now works as the Research Associate and GIS Analyst at UTC’s Interdisciplinary Geospatial Technology Lab (IGTLab), where she continues to collaborate in regional
conservation efforts, assist in creating regional maps and applications, and advises students and faculty with GIS needs.
Courtney Alley grew up in Greeneville, TN. In 2016 she earned her Bachelor of Science in Biology from Tennessee Wesleyan University. She went on to complete her Master of Science in Environmental Science from the University of Tennessee
at Chattanooga in 2019. Her thesis research worked to incorporate species distribution modeling into a prioritization scheme for Tennessee’s invasive plant species. Recently, Courtney began working with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources as a rare
plant data technician. She continues to use her skills in GIS and predictive modeling to assist the Fish and Wildlife Service conducting Species Status Assessment of the federally threatened plant species, Scutellaria montana. She is always seeking new opportunities
to contribute her GIS and predictive modeling skills to the conservation community.
Stay safe and stay sane,
Michael Camponovo
GIS Outreach Coordinator
Geography Department, UT Knoxville
209A Burchfiel Geography Building
1000 Phillip Fulmer Way
Knoxville, TN 37996
(865) 974-5348