Spatial analysis manual now available Spanish

Bioversity International's Training Manual on Spatial Analysis of Plant Diversity and Distribution, first published in 2010, is now available in Spanish.

It is intended for scientists and students who work with biodiversity data, and are interested in developing skills to carry out spatial analysis based on (free) GIS applications, with a focus on diversity and ecological analyses.

Although the manual focuses on plant diversity (mainly crops, trees, crop wild relatives and endangered species), many of the types of analyses described can also be applied to  other organisms such as animals and fungi.

A veterinarian, who is using the manual to train field staff, pointed out many similarities between spatial analysis for plants and animals:

When we are talking about diversity, we are talking about a number of different diseases that affect animal populations in a given area, and the parameters are the same: code and name of diseases, latitude and longitude, and many other associated data/parameters. Likewise, you can do a lot of richness and distribution analysis, which literally is the same, for example, point or Kernel density. I am now training some of our field staff, and that is the main reason why I need the manual - for them to quickly grasp the concepts.

It was also used in a  course for graduate students (393 KB) organized in Argentina, October 2011 in collaboration with the Istituto Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria (INTA) and Universidad Nacional del Nordeste de la Provincia de Buenos Aires (UNNOBA). Some students gave their comments after the course:

The manual stimulates users to think of potential situations in which GIS analysis could be applied.

The manual is a very good tool to manage plant genetic resources, particularly to plan and deliver collecting missions of targeted germplasm.

The exercises in the manual are well organized; the manual is of high quality.