Statistics In Biogeography

The statistical methods applied in biogeography are reviewed. Particularly, the estimation of geographic ranges by using data from atlas surveys are considered. Many of the problems in biogeography and the methods to solve them are parallel to those in other fields of geography. Hence the ideas presented are applicable in several fields of applications with spatial data. Key words: Biogeography, geographic distributions, wildlife populations, spatial data, Bayesian statistics, image restoration, logistic regression, spatio-temporal modelling. Typeset by A M S-T E X 2 1. Introduction E. C. Pielou has defined the work of a biographer to consist in observing, recording and explaining the geographic ranges of all living things (Pielou, 1979). Biographers have introduced a variety of mathematical models to explain the observed phenomena. Many of these models are stochastic by nature, and hence using statistical methods is inevitable. Furthermore, biogeographic data are usually incomplete..