We cordially invite you to attend a 1-day workshop on species distribution modeling (SDM) with Marine Geospatial Ecology Tools (MGET), on Saturday, 14 December in Dunedin, New Zealand, following the conclusion of the Society for Marine Mammalogy's Biennial Conference. MGET is a free, open source geoprocessing toolbox that plugs into ArcGIS and contains over 250 tools that are useful in a variety of research and spatial planning problems. MGET can help you with scenarios as simple as easily acquiring oceanographic data in GIS-compatible formats, to more complicated problems such as simulating the dispersal of larvae by ocean currents. To learn more about MGET, please go to http://mgel.env.duke.edu/mget. The workshop will be a mixture of presentations and practical exercises. Attendees will be seated at ArcGIS workstations provided by the University of Otago and over the course of the day we will work though the steps of an SDM example. Starting with records of sightings of a marine animal, we will build up a geoprocessing workflow that links the sightings to oceanographic observations, explores statistical properties of the data, fits a multivariate statistical model relating the animal's distribution to oceanographic covariates, evaluates the model's performance, and predicts the animal's distribution across the seascape using remote sensing imagery. This example will take heavy advantage the interoperation MGET establishes between ArcGIS and the popular statistics program R, which will be used to perform the statistical operations. The specific model we will build depends on attendee interests, but likely to be either models of cetacean habitat suitability and density from line transect survey data (using distance sampling techniques), models of fish habitat suitability and CPUE from fishery catch data, or a model of seabird habitat use or possibly behavior from telemetry data. Regardless of which example we select, the overall workflow will cover many of the steps needed for all of them, and we'll discuss important difference between them. The cost will be NZ$25-35 per person (we are still working out the exact amount), plus lunch unless you bring your own. Space is limited. To register, or if you have any questions, please contact Judy Rodda (hamrodda@yahoo.com) and myself. We hope to see you there. Best regards, Jason Roberts jason.roberts@duke.edu Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab, Duke University http://mgel.env.duke.edu