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This chapter explains how environmental data can be used to create models that characterize species’ ecological niches in environmental space. It introduces a model, which is a function constructed by means of data analysis for the purpose of approximating the true relationship (that is, the niche) in the form of the function f linking the environment and species occurrences. The chapter first considers the “meaning” of the function f that is being estimated by the algorithms before discussing the modeling algorithms, the approaches used to implement ecological niche modeling, model calibration, model complexity and overfitting, and model extrapolation and transferability. The chapter concludes with an overview of differences among methods and selection of “best” models, along with strategies for characterizing ecological niches in ways that allow visualization, comparisons, definition of quantitative measures, snf more.

This chapter focuses on the conceptual and applied aspects of environmental data in the context of building and interpreting ecological niche models. It first examines how different suites of environmental factors may affect species distributions across a range of spatial scales before discussing which and how many variables are needed for ecological niche modeling. It then reviews the diverse sources of environmental datasets that are of potential utility in ecological niche modeling and concludes by considering a number of challenges involved in designing and choosing environmental data for ecological niche modeling. These challenges include data preparation, data quality, spatial extent, resolution in space and time, types of environmental data, and ancillary data.

Earth observations are relevant in explaining the interactions between law and geography for two reasons. Aside from how relevant environmental information is obtained through Earth observation satellites, the legal bases for the access to such information are gradually becoming more specific. While the amount of environmental data collected by Earth observation satellites in space has experienced significant increases since 1960, the regulations and principles attributed to collecting such data has also developed and has become evidently more explicit over time. Through taking a global perspective, looking specifically at the European level and two national-level studies from the USA and the UK, this chapter attempts to explore the key components of the said regulations and principles.

This chapter focuses on the connection between citizen science and landscape ecology and how it can widen the circle of scientific research across space and time. It first explains how citizen science can be used to test many pertinent hypotheses regarding the cause and biological consequences of habitat loss and fragmentation. It then looks at past uses of citizen science to investigate the effects of habitat loss and fragmentation and goes on to discuss how citizen science can be employed to answer questions in landscape ecology, such as combining citizen science data with environmental data of an appropriate spatial extent and resolution.

The spread of Mississippian culture throughout much of the Eastern US has long been of interest to archaeologists. Interpretations of this spread have oscillated widely over the development of the discipline between what are generally referred to as historical and processual approaches. This chapter briefly summarizes these approaches and then directly examines some key aspects of each. Integration of mortuary data with biodistance and chemical analyses from human burials with environmental data provides a key to unlock both the processes and histories at play in the development of one area on which Mississippian culture developed. The central argument is that the basic structure of the Fort Ancient village developed in close connection with early interactions with Mississippian migrants. Village origins are linked to a series of general processes and specific historical developments involving exploitation of a particular type of environmental niche, reuse of ancient monuments, and referencing mythic Mississippian events. The basic conclusion is that it is much better to seek a model that incorporates elements of both culture process and culture history if we are to arrive at a more comprehensive understanding of the past.

This chapter describes different aspects of the postglacial fire, vegetation, and climate history of the Yellowstone-Lamar and central plateau provinces, Yellowstone National Park (YNP). The fires of 1988 were unique in the history of YNP, because during that summer a relatively small number of fires occurred over an enormous region. Paleo-environmental data from the northern and central Rocky Mountains suggest that the contrast between summer-wet and summer-dry precipitation regimes was greater during periods of higher-than-present insolation. The sediments of Yellowstone's lakes provide an opportunity to reconstruct the vegetation and fire history of the region back to the time of late-Pleistocene deglaciation. Stratigraphic pollen records provide information on changing forest composition. Studies in YNP indicate that large particles of charcoal are not transported far from their sources and offer information on local fire history.