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ModestR Software
Quick start tutorial
1 Introduction
ModestR software is a software package to help academic community managing species
distribution information. It is currently composed of three applications:
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MapMaker: aimed to build distribution maps in a simple way, either by selected the
zones where the species is found (range maps), or by adding samples or occurrences in
the map from CSV files o GBIF database. It also provides several tools to analize and
transform a map (such as data cleaning, hulling, etc.)
DataManager allows creating taxonomic databases where maps should be stored
associated to a species. It also performs calculations and exports data like presence or
richness matrices, that can be processed with other software tools. Most of the features
available in MapMaker to analize and transform maps are also available in
DataManager, with the crucial difference that while in MapMaker they will be applied
to one single map, in DataManager they could be applied to a whole collection of maps
launching a sort of batch task.
MRFinder allows to find in the distribution maps stored in a ModestR database which
species are present in an area of the world, simply by selecting this area in the map.
Then it can generate several statistical and summary data output.
MRMapping is a tool to easily make maps grouping several species data by any rank,
and presenting several datasets in the same map. This makes easy to represent de
distribution of any group of species, of genus, a family, etc… or to show where two or
more species (or groups of species) overlap. MRMapping can also calculate overlapping
areas.
In the next sections we introduce those tools. We also describe the different importation and
exportation options and formats supported by ModestR applications in the sections 6, 7 and 8
respectively.
1.1 ModestR assumptions
Before all, it is interesting to point out some assumptions and facts about ModestR that can be
important to correctly understand how it works, its limitations, and to properly interpret results
obtained with ModestR:
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ModestR types of maps: ModestR supports three types of presence maps:
o Sample maps or maps based on occurrence records. Each sample is basically a pair
of longitude and latitude coordinates that identify a location where a species is
present. Being a point, area of a sample cannot be accurately evaluated. Therefore,
in terms of presence area calculation, ModestR makes a simple assumption,
considering that the area of sample equals the area of the cell of 1’x1’ where it is
located. But that this is just a convenient assumption and not an accurate value.
Other areas calculated from sample maps, such as Extent of Occurrence area using
convex hull or alpha shape, will be accurately calculated, as they are polygons but
not just points.
o Range or area maps: range or area maps are maps where species presence is
demarcated by polygons or areas. In this case, areas can be accurately calculated,
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