Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
6
GeoComputation
Applications in Biology
Shawn W. Laffan
CONTENTS
Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... 125
6.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 125
6.2 Biological Data ..................................................................................................................... 126
6.2.1 Taxonomies and Phylogenies .................................................................................... 127
6.2.2 Genes and Other Molecular Data ............................................................................. 128
6.2.3 Phenotypes, Traits and Phenology ............................................................................ 129
6.2.4 Data Explosion .......................................................................................................... 129
6.3 Analytical Methods .............................................................................................................. 130
6.3.1 Diversity Analyses .................................................................................................... 130
6.3.2 Generalised Dissimilarity Modelling ....................................................................... 133
6.3.3 Reserve Design ......................................................................................................... 135
6.3.4 Disease Spread .......................................................................................................... 137
6.3.5 Movement Analyses .................................................................................................. 137
6.4 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................... 139
References ...................................................................................................................................... 139
ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of some current and potential applications of
GeoComputation (GC) in biology. GC and biology overlap in several important areas in terms of
algorithms and application spaces, but there is considerable potential for further use of biological
applications in GC research. Biological data, with its taxonomies, phylogenies, genetic related-
ness and molecular data, do not always lend themselves to analysis using conventional GC data
structures. This means that standard GC approaches often need to be adapted or rebuilt when used
for biological applications. Following a discussion of pertinent data structures and the explosive
growth in acquired and warehoused biological data now available for numerical investigation, a
set of example application areas of relevance to, or representing opportunity for, GC research are
considered. The topics covered in this chapter demonstrate how biological applications espouse the
core organising concepts and techniques of GC and that computationally intensive modelling of
biological systems is very much at the cutting edge of biology research. Much biologically oriented
GC research has already begun, but there remains a wealth of opportunity for researchers in GC to
utilise and explore biological data and applications.
6.1 INTRODUCTION
The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of some current and potential applications of
GeoComputation (GC) in biology. GC is a relatively small field, focussed on methods, with a
broad applicability across the geospatial disciplines. In contrast, biology is an enormous discipline
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