The ibis.iSDM package provides a series of convenience functions to fit integrated Species Distribution Models (iSDMs). With integrated models we generally refer to SDMs that incorporate information from different biodiversity datasets, external parameters such as priors or offsets with respect to certain variables and regions.

The ibis.iSDM R-package is a set of modular convenience functions that allows the integration of different data sources, such as presence-only, community survey, expert ranges or species habitat preferences, in a single model or ensemble of models. Further it supports convenient parameter transformations and tuning, data preparation helpers and allows the creation of spatial-temporal projections and scenarios. Ecological constraints such as projection limits, dispersal, connectivity or adaptability can be added in a modular fashion thus helping to prevent unrealistic estimates of species distribution changes.

The ibis.iSDM R-package makes use of a series of methodological advances and is aimed to be a vehicle for creating more realistic and constrained spatial predictions. Besides providing convenience functions for a range of different statistical models as well as an increasing number of wrappers for mechanistic modules, ibis.iSDM also introduces several innovative concepts such as sequential or weighted integration, or thresholding by prediction uncertainty. The overall framework will be continued to be improved and further functionalities be added.

The ibis.iSDM framework is developed by the Biodiversity, Ecology and Conservation (BEC) group and is part of a suite of biodiversity models able to produce policy-relevant indicators. The R-package is made openly available to external researchers.

Download the package here