NIX, HENRY A. Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University, CANBERRA ACT 0200, AUSTRALIA. - Modelling plant and animal distributions in <|>Terra Australis (Australia and New Guinea) in space and time.
The continuing development of a computer-based system for bioclimatic
analysis of plant and animal distribution is described. The BIOCLIM
package was developed to exploit the latent potential of specimen
label data in museums and herbaria, but can be used for analysis of
any set of point-based records. Since it first became accessible to
users throughtout Australia on CSIRONET in 1984, this package and
closely related software have had a very wide range of applications in
taxonomy, ecology, biogeography, palaeoecology and in attempts to
predict biological impacts of possible future climates in Austalia and
New Guinea. The basic price of admission to this technology is a set
of climate surfaces and a digital elevation model of the target
region, at a scale relevant to the problem posed. Extension of the
BIOCLIM methodology to incorporate a generic model of plant growth
response to light, temperature and water regimes significantly expands
the scope of ecological and biogeographic analysis. A selected set of
cogent applications illustrates both the potential value and inherent
limitations of BIOCLIM methodologies.
Key words: BIOCLIM, biogeography, ecology, palaeoecology, software, taxonomy