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Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
agricultural and biological sciences
bRacatus: A method to estimate the accuracy and biogeographical status of georeferenced biological data
Methods in Ecology and Evolution, Volume 12, No. 9, Year 2021
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Description
Georeferenced biological data of species distributions, abundances or traits are critical for ecological and evolutionary research. However, the accuracy (true vs. false records) and biogeographical status (native vs. alien) of individual georeferenced records are often unclear, which limits their use in species distribution modelling, analyses of biodiversity change and other applications. Here, we introduced bRacatus, a new method and R package to estimate a given georeferenced record's probability of being true or false and of corresponding to a native or an alien occurrence. Our framework avoided artificial thresholds of data filtering and instead implemented a probabilistic framework which allowed propagating uncertainties in subsequent analyses. We trained and tested our method on 400 terrestrial species of amphibians, birds, terrestrial mammals and vascular plants from four continents. bRacatus showed good predictive power (mean AUC higher than 0.9; mean RMSE lower than 0.3) for both the accuracy and biogeographical status. Model performance was similar among continents, range sizes and taxa not used in the training. Tests were robust using either range maps or regional checklists of differing levels of data completeness as reference regions. bRacatus was implemented as a user-friendly R package that enabled researchers to assess the accuracy and biogeographical status of species occurrences, population abundances, community composition or any other type of georeferenced biodiversity records. We proposed this method as a routine step in addressing the inherent uncertainty of point observations to promote more accurate ecological inference and predictions. © 2021 The Authors. Methods in Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society
Authors & Co-Authors
Zizka, Alexander
Germany, Leipzig
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Idiv Halle-jena-leipzig
Netherlands, Leiden
Naturalis Biodiversity Center
Keil, Petr
Germany, Leipzig
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Idiv Halle-jena-leipzig
Germany, Halle
Martin-luther-universität Halle-wittenberg
Czech Republic, Prague
Czech University of Life Sciences Prague
Winter, Marten
Germany, Leipzig
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Idiv Halle-jena-leipzig
Essl, Franz
Austria, Vienna
Universität Wien
Knight, Tiffany M.
Germany, Leipzig
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Idiv Halle-jena-leipzig
Germany, Halle
Martin-luther-universität Halle-wittenberg
Germany, Leipzig
Helmholtz Zentrum Für Umweltforschung
Weigelt, Patrick
Germany, Gottingen
Georg-august-universität Göttingen
Meyer, Carsten
Germany, Leipzig
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Idiv Halle-jena-leipzig
Germany, Leipzig
Universität Leipzig
Germany, Halle
Martin-luther-universität Halle-wittenberg
Statistics
Citations: 12
Authors: 7
Affiliations: 8
Identifiers
Doi:
10.1111/2041-210X.13629
ISSN:
2041210X
Study Design
Cross Sectional Study