Truly Santika

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

The University of Queensland, March 2011 – current

E-Mail: t.santika@uq.edu.au 

I obtained my PhD degree in December 2010. My PhD thesis constructs a systematic simulation data framework in order to provide an understanding of how various data and methodological factors can affect species distribution model prediction and inference. The data issues examined include the form of species occurrence and environmental dependence, prevalence, and spatial autocorrelation in species occurrence data and in supporting environmental data. The methodological factors examined include the predictive performance measure, the method for setting the probability threshold used to define species occurrence in the fitted distribution model, and the success of the fitted distribution model in capturing the dominant environmental determinant for the species. The findings were used to explain relationships found by existing studies for real species distribution data.

After submitting my thesis in March 2010, I worked as a research officer at the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the Australian National University, extending my doctoral research into species distribution modelling. The work included both a theoretical aspects of species distribution modeling methodology and an application to modelling the spatial distribution of West Australian orchids.

I am currently working to investigate ways to optimize koala conservation activity, such as koala offset planning and the role of spatial dependences among multiple threats in driving koala conservation strategies.

Research interests

• Macroecological and niche modeling
• Spatial population dynamics
• Empirical and theoretical spatio-temporal analysis
• Optimization modeling for biodiversity conservation and natural resource management

Publications:

Papers published

Santika, T. (2011) Assessing the effect of prevalence on predictive performance of species distribution models using simulated data. Global Ecology and Biogeography 20: 181-192.

Santika, T. and Hutchinson, M.F. (2009) The effect of species response form on species distribution model prediction and inference. Ecological Modelling 220: 2365-2379.

Hearne, J.W., Santika, T. and Goodman, P. (2008) Portfolio selection theory and wildlife management. ORiON 24: 103-113.

Papers in progress

Santika, T. and Hutchinson, M.F. The effect of spatially correlated data on modelling species distributions. In revision. Ecography.