Materials

10 Eco Data Things is a suite of activities to explore issues surrounding management of research data, specifically for people working with ecological data. This module was developed from the 23 (research data) Things program and the extensive resources and materials provided by the former Australian National Data Service related to data management and reuse.

The module includes the following materials:

1. 10 Eco Data Things handout
2. Teacher information document

 

When modelling with data, it is important to make sure that the input data for your model is fit for use to ensure that the model outputs are relevant to your question. This module addresses different aspects of biodiversity data quality, and how to filter species data using the Spatial Portal of the Atlas of Living Australia.

The module includes the following materials:

1. Biodiversity Data Quality lecture
2. Handout for a practical exercise filtering species data using the ALA
3. Teacher information document

 

 

Good data is essential for both ecological research and management. This module firstly presents an overview of the available data of the Terrestrial Ecosystem Search Network (TERN) in general, and secondly concentrates on one of the main data streams at TERN, Ecosystem Surveillance. More details about this type of data will be provided, as well as a tutorial on how to access and use these data in R.

The module includes the following materials:

1. TERN Data presentation
2. TERN Ecosystems Surveillance: AusPlots rangelands data and ausplotsR presentation
3. Understanding and using the ausplotsR package and data tutorial

 

Species Distribution Models (SDM) can be used to understand the potential distribution of a species or the environmental suitability of locations based on a set of environmental conditions. This module addresses the fundamental aspects of species distribution models (SDM), the type of data needed for these models, different types of algorithms and evaluation of models as well as an understanding of Climate Change projections to investigate how species distributions might change in the future.

The module includes the following materials:

1. Species Distribution lecture
2. Climate Change lecture
3. Handout for a practical exercise in SDM and climate change projections using the BCCVL
4. Teacher information document

 

One of the challenges in environmental management is to make decisions which include environmental, social and economic aspects. These problems may benefit from multi-criteria analysis. Multi-criteria analysis (MCA) helps decision makers develop coherent preferences for a given problem so that decisions can be taken with more confidence. This module explains the multi-criteria analysis (MCA) framework and allows student to apply this knowledge in a tutorial using a free spatial software tool (MCAS-S) developed by the MCAS-S development Partnership. This module has been developed by the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES). 

The module includes the following materials:

1. Multi-Criteria Analysis lecture
   
2. Handout for a practical exercise using MCAS-S
3. MCAS-S data pack for tutorial
4. MCAS-S data pack for lecture example
5. Teacher information document

 

Microorganisms living in soil or water are fundamental to ecosystem health – they mediate biogeochemical and nutrient cycling, are integral to the productions of crops, livestock, clean drinking water and are a means to mitigate pollution. A 'microbiome' is a term to describe all of the microorganisms in a particular environment and the complexity and abundance of specific taxonomic groupings of microbes in any microbiome can be assessed through combining DNA sequencing technology with bioinformatics approaches. This module has been developed by the ARDC funded Bioscience RDC project.

The module includes the following materials:

1. Genomic approaches for assessing environmental microbial diversity lecture (powerpoint)
2. A practical exercise that takes raw DNA 'amplicon' sequencing data (i.e. specifically focused on one region of one bacterial gene) obtained from a number of soil samples from two different environments and identifies differences in microbial populations between the samples. The exercise can be completed using the publicly available Galaxy Australia service (https://usegalaxy.org.au)