PBGJAM

Biodiversity habitats in transition: big data offer insights for species and communities

We apply the latest advancements in technology and statistics to forecast the effects of a changing climate on the abundance and distribution of America's wildlife

Species MAps

Species models

Predicting Biodiversity with Generalized Joint Attribute Models

With the support of NASA, we use satellites to monitor our changing planet, and through the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), we track how these changes will impact North America's species and wildlife communities.

We offer online tools and maps to explore these changes, and the option to download this information for your own use.

Maps and Models

Explore our Research

Our maps are based on advances in Bayesian modeling, and unique in their focus on "critical habitat." Below, you can dive under the hood of the maps and explore the model specifics or explore the maps by species taxa.

Community Maps Community Models

Trees

Explore how climate change will alter North American forests.

Map

Model

Mammals

Explore how climate change will impact our mammal species.

Map

Model

Birds

Explore how climate change will alter where birds live in the future.

Map

Model

Beetles

Explore how climate change will affect these small but vital species.

Map

Model

Sustainable Science

Our Data Streams

Long-term studies are drivers of scientific innovation. Combining the resources of NASA with those of the National Ecological Observatory Network and other open source data sets and citizen science projects, we can better predict the impacts of climate change on our country and world. You can find our specific model data here.

NEON Aerial Observation Platform

NEON provides hyperspectral and LiDAR data collected annually by an aerial observation platform. We use this data to better understand the local traits of ecosystems.

Learn More

NASA Satellite Remote Sensing

We use NASA satellites to understand how temperature, soil moisture, and the productivity of trees and other planets drives the structure and composition of communities.

Learn More

The Wonder of life

Biodiversity drives the natural world and ecosystem services

We use data collected by field assistants and research technicians from the National Ecological Observatory Network to develop our joint attribute models, and estimate where and when species will occur in the future under climate change.

Learn More

Observations and Interpolations

Our Changing Climate

We use climate information that is taken and interpolated from many sources, including local weather stations, satellites, and remote observations to model how climate shapes the distribution and abundance of species

Learn More

Predicting Biodiversity with Generalized Joint Attribute Models

What is PBGJAM?

PBGJAM is a NASA funded project which assimilates biodiversity and habitat data to predict species and community response under climate change; develops a web-based forecast of climate vulnerability for scientists, managers, and decision makers; and transforms high-dimensional biodiversity and remote-sensing data into near real-time risk predictions.

Automated Workflows

Automatic assimilation of biodiversity and remote sensing inputs ensures up-to-date and accurate predictions across the US

Learn More

Bayesian Modeling

Generalized Joint Attribute Modeling (GJAM) fits all species jointly, ensuring robust community and species level predictions

GJAM Tutorial

Risk Prediction

Our models forecast community reorganization under climate change across the US, built for decision makers & scientists

Launch Maps

Interactive Website

Allows the public, decision makers, and scientists to explore, visualize, and download our forecast models

Launch Models

Developer Version

With tutorials and code available, you can leverage our models and workflow to incorporate and augment your own data

Visit GitHub

Reproducible

We seek to achieve the highest standard in our work, and make available all our code to ensure our models are accurate

Documentation

PBGJAM in the Community

News and Updates

All Posts

Case Studies

If you can’t go north, where can you go?

Feb 24, 2020

Lane Scher

Media Coverage

PBGJAM in the News!

Oct 14, 2019

Christopher Kilner

No items found.

Continual Growth

PBGJAM will continue to expand

In the coming years, the PBGJAM project will continue to expand beyond the United States, to regions around the globe as we try to understand how our changing climate will affect global biodiversity. Watch the video to learn more about our expansion into Europe, and clikc below to read the article about this work.

LEarn More

A community of science

Our Research Team

Classic species distribution models predict and explore community structures from the individual species level - often falling prey to Simpson's paradox. With PBGJAM, we seek to model whole community responses to climate change to more accurately predict the impact of both the individual species and the ecosystem as a whole.