[Qgis-community-team] new case study for QGIS site: QGIS/GRASS IN BIOGEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH

[Tim Sutton]

Hi Giovanni

I'm not sure if anyone else has responded to this yet. It would make a
great addition to the site. My only request would be that she include
a few images of output from her research, and a personal 'headshot'
photo as we have done with the other case study on the site.

We can then go ahead and add it.

Best regards

Tim

On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 11:00 AM, Giovanni Manghi
<giovanni.manghi at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have just received from my friend Marcia Barbosa a text that
> would fill nicely as a new case study for the QGIS web site. Here it
> is (I have also a couple of pictures that are too heavy to attach, sak
> directly to me):
>
>
> "QGIS/GRASS IN BIOGEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH
>
> I started applying GIS to my work in biogeography about 10 years ago.
> Through my graduate internship, PhD work and two other research jobs,
> I used the proprietary software packages that were available and used
> at my workplaces – mainly CartaLinx, Idrisi, ArcView and ArcGIS. But I
> found it rather annoying that we were constantly dealing with license
> renewal issues, and that I could not use the software away from the
> workplace unless I acquired my own license.
>
> It crossed my mind on several occasions that switching to free
> software would spare me those problems. However, there was prejudice
> against the analytical capabilities of free software, and even after I
> heard about the potential of GRASS, I was still reluctant because I
> thought it would be too difficult to learn. I was also afraid it would
> be cumbersome to migrate all the maps and analyses that I had done so
> far.
>
> At the beginning of my post-doc in 2008, I finally gave it an
> opportunity and took a training course on Quantum GIS and GRASS. It
> was probably the best decision of my professional life! I found that
> QGIS provided a very intuitive interface for GRASS, that they
> complemented each other perfectly, and they provided all the
> analytical capabilities I needed.
>
> I started using both programs immediately after the course. Not only
> did I begin all my new GIS work with QGIS/GRASS [e.g. 1,2], but I also
> did follow-up analyses on previous works that I had done with
> commercial software. For example, I had built models of otter [3] and
> desman [4] distribution in the Iberian Peninsula. After switching to
> QGIS-GRASS, I analysed how those models behaved when downscaled to a
> finer resolution [5]. Another previous work on biogeographic
> relationships between Iberian lynx and rabbit [6] had a follow-up
> after I switched to QGIS-GRASS [7]. Not only did I not have any
> problems with the migration of the data and previous results: I also
> found it much easier to do the things I wanted to do with the new
> software, and was able to do extra analyses which I could not have
> done with the programs I used before.
>
> All in all, switching to Quantum GIS/GRASS brought me nothing but
> advantages. I can now work freely at work, at home and on my laptop on
> the move, without having to worry about software licenses or moving to
> new institutions. Open-source software covers all my research needs
> and gives me the freedom I longed for.
>
>
> References
>
> [1] Barbosa A.M., Fontaneto D., Marini L. & Pautasso M. (2010) Is the
> human population a large-scale indicator of the species richness of
> ground beetles? Animal Conservation, early view. doi:
> 10.1111/j.1469-1795.2010.00363.x.
>
> [2] Fontaneto D., Barbosa A.M., Pautasso M. & Segers H. (submitted)
> The 'rotiferologist' effect and the drivers of species richness in
> rotifers.
>
> [3] Barbosa, A.M., R. Real, J. Olivero & J.M. Vargas, 2003. Otter
> (Lutra lutra) distribution modeling at two resolution scales suited to
> conservation planning in the Iberian Peninsula. Biological
> Conservation, 114:377-387.
>
> [4] Barbosa A.M., Real R. & Vargas J.M. (2009) Transferability of
> environmental favourability models in geographic space: the case of
> the Iberian desman (Galemys pyrenaicus) in Portugal and Spain.
> Ecological Modelling 220: 747-754. doi:
> 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2008.12.004
>
> [5] Barbosa A.M., Real R. & Vargas J.M. (2010) Use of
> coarse-resolution models of species' distributions to guide local
> conservation inferences. Conservation Biology, early view. doi:
> 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2010.01517.x
>
> [6] Real R., A. M. Barbosa, A. Rodríguez, F. J. García, J. M. Vargas,
> L. J. Palomo & M. Delibes, 2008. Conservation biogeography of
> ecologically-interacting species: the case of the Iberian lynx and the
> European rabbit. Diversity and Distributions, 15: 390–400. doi:
> 10.1111/j.1472-4642.2008.00546.x.
>
> [7] Barbosa, A.M. & Real, R. (in press) Favourable areas for expansion
> and reintroduction of Iberian lynx accounting for distribution trends
> and genetic diversity of the European rabbit. Wildlife Biology in
> Practice."
>
> Author
> This article was contributed in July 2010 by Dr. A. Márcia Barbosa.
> She is a post-doctoral researcher at Imperial College London (UK) and
> the University of Évora (Portugal).
>
>
>
>
> cheers
>
> -- Giovanni --
>
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>



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