Estimating Species Distributions-Across Space, Through Time, and with Features of the Environment

Determining the patterns of species occurrence through time and space and understanding their links with features of the environment are central themes in ecology. Using data-intensive approaches, scientists can analyze larger and more complex systems efficiently and complement more traditional scientific processes of hypothesis generation and experimental testing, and in so doing refine our understanding of the natural world. Over the past year, a working group consisting of computer scientists, domain researchers, programmers, and analysts met to identify and develop data-intensive procedures. This chapter reports the results of this working group. For this project, the dynamic habitat relationships of hundreds of species of birds across North America are identified through the assembly, exploration, analysis, and visualization of data using examples based on the synthesis and modeling of large datasets collected across multiple scientific domains.