View on GitHub

David J. Harris

Predictive ecology

I'm a sixth-year graduate student in the Population Biology Graduate Group at UC Davis. I build statistical models to try to learn why species live where they do and which species can coexist. These models should be of interest to ecologists across a range of subdisciplines, from basic ecologists interested in understanding environmental filtering and species interactions, to applied ecologists interested in making predictions about the future ranges of species in novel environments.
An early version of this work won the Ecological Society of America’s 2012 E. C. Pielou award for best statistical presentation by a student. A more recent version is now available from Methods in Ecology and Evolution or as an open-access preprint.

My CV as a PDF

CV

Papers

Generating realistic assemblages with a Joint Species Distribution Model. DJ Harris. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 2015. Preprint

A Lack of Crowding? Body Size Does Not Decrease with Density for Two Behavior-Manipulating Parasites. KL Weinersmith, CB Warinner, V Tan, DJ Harris, AB Mora, AM Kuris, KD Lafferty, RF Hechinger. Integrative and comparative biology. 2014.

Predicting novel herbivore–plant interactions. IS Pearse, DJ Harris, R Karban and A Sih. Oikos 2013. PDF

Occupancy is nine-tenths of the law: occupancy rates determine the homogenizing and differentiating effects of exotic species. DJ Harris, KG Smith, PJ Hanly. The American Naturalist 2011. PDF

Evolution and behavioural responses to human‐induced rapid environmental change. A Sih, MCO Ferrari, DJ Harris. Evolutionary Applications 2011. PDF

Incorporating evolutionary principles into environmental management and policy. R Lankau, PS Jørgensen, DJ Harris, A Sih. Evolutionary Applications 2011. PDF

Reproductive consequences of male body mass and aggressiveness depend on females’ behavioral types. JN Pruitt, SE Riechert, DJ Harris. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 2011.

Statistical tutorials

Maximum likelihood estimation

Markov Chain Monte Carlo

MaxEnt for presence-only species distribution modeling

CrossValidated answers

Expectation maximization

Neural neworks

Advanced Markov Chain Monte Carlo