Develop advanced habitat and distribution modelling skills for marine mammal research in our live online course Mechanistic Species Distribution Modelling: Ecological Niche Modelling with NicheMapR (MSDM01).
Understanding how marine mammals respond to environmental conditions is central to predicting habitat use, distribution shifts, and responses to climate change. Mechanistic species distribution models (SDMs) provide a powerful framework for linking environmental drivers with physiological and energetic constraints that shape where species can survive and thrive.
This course introduces the theory and practical implementation of mechanistic ecological niche modelling using R and the NicheMapR package, allowing researchers to move beyond purely correlative models and incorporate biological processes into distribution predictions.
These methods are highly relevant for marine mammal research, including:
Predicting habitat suitability under changing conditions
Linking physiology and energetics to environmental drivers
Forecasting distribution shifts under climate change scenarios
Integrating environmental variables with movement and survey data
Supporting conservation planning and marine spatial management
The course covers:
Foundations of ecological niche theory and mechanistic SDMs
Differences between mechanistic and correlative modelling approaches
Incorporating physiology, energetics, and environmental constraints into models
Using NicheMapR to simulate organism–environment interactions
Building mechanistic niche models and interpreting outputs
Applications to climate change and conservation decision-making
Participants will work through practical examples and learn how to construct mechanistic models that can be applied to real ecological datasets within reproducible R workflows.
Delivered live online, the course offers direct interaction with the instructor, opportunities to discuss your own datasets, and structured guidance through applied modelling examples. All participants receive course materials, example code, and post-course support.
Course details
Dates: 7 April 2026
Duration: 1 days (approximately 4.5 hours per day)
Format: Live online
Fee: £150
This course is suitable for postgraduate students, researchers, and professionals working in marine mammal ecology, conservation, and spatial modelling who want to develop mechanistic approaches for predicting species distributions.
Full details and registration:
https://prstats.org/course/mechanistic-species-distribution-modelling-ecological-niche-modelling-with-nichemapr-msdm01/
Email oliver@prstats.org with any questions.