Abstract

PELAYO-VILLAMIL, Patricia et al. MODESTR: A SOFTWARE TOOL FOR STUDYING OF COLOMBIAN AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS. Actu Biol [online]. 2012, vol.34, n.97, pp.225-239. ISSN 0304-3584.

The aim of this manuscript is to show the usefulness of the software package ModestR in studies of distribution of Colombian marine and freshwater species. This software is free available at the Website: ModestR" target="_blank"http://www.ipez.es/ModestR. To show and test the potential of ModestR, here an exemplar assessment is presented of a database using all valid species of freshwater fishes of the orders Characiformes and Siluriformes, and their geographical records available in the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF, 2012), and of the order Carcharhiniformes as representatives of marine species. ModestR includes, in its initial phase, two applications: DataManager and distribution of any species group. The application MapMaker has been designed to generate species distribution maps in four different ways: 1) by importing a CSV file with the name of the species and their geographical coordinates, 2) importing the geographical records automatically from GBIF, 3) importing geographical coordinates generated by distribution models, and 4) making expert maps by selecting distribution areas, according to the types of habitats occupied by the species. The possibility of working with habitats is one of the most important contributions of ModestR and, in particular, that are mapped small lotic ecosystems (creeks, streams, etc.), large lotic ecosystems (rivers) and lentic ecosystems (ponds, lakes, reservoirs, swamps, etc.). Moreover, it is also possible to select marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Therefore, although the manuscript has been focused on species of aquatic ecosystems, ModestR also allows the same type of studies with terrestrial species.

Keywords : distribution models; GBIF; macroecology; ModestR; species distribution; species richness.

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