Featured Paper by Jason Roberts, Pat Halpin, Ben Best, Daniel Dunn
Duke University Marine Geospatial Ecology Laboratory is developing Marine Geospatial Ecology Tools, a free, open-source Python package for marine ecologists. Our presentation will demonstrate four sets of included tools. The benthic complexity tool predicts hardbottom substrate from coarse-resolution (90m) bathymetry. Oceanographic data tools perform batch conversion of oceanographic satellite data to Arc formats, and batch sampling. Habitat modeling tools execute multivariate regression techniques on sampled environmental parameters and identify optimal habitat patches from logistic habitat surfaces. Connectivity tools apply graph-theoretic algorithms for calculating least-cost paths between all patches, restricting networks based on dispersal distances, and calculating graph metrics such as degree and betweenness. The package is designed for interoperability and extensibility
