Catherine Jarnevich, Ph.D.
Biography
Catherine began working for the USGS while obtaining her doctorate in ecology in 2000. She gained skills in integrating disparate datasets of species’ location data and using these to generate spatially explicit models of species occurrence and abundance. Since that time she has developed a research program through the USGS Resource for Advanced Modeling to assist multiple agencies and groups with species distributions, focusing on invasive species. Catherine’s current research involves the application of habitat suitability models to answer different applied research and management questions for various species across a range of taxa and spatial scales. She has also been working with spatially explicit state and transition modeling to inform efficient landscape scale invasive plant management.
Science and Products
Citizen science contributes to our knowledge of invasive plant species distributions
Citizen science is commonly cited as an effective approach to expand the scale of invasive species data collection and monitoring. However, researchers often hesitate to use these data due to concerns over data quality. In light of recent research on the quality of data collected by volunteers, we aimed to demonstrate the extent to which citizen...
Crall, Alycia W.; Jarnevich, Catherine S.; Young, Nicholas E.; Panke, Brendon; Renz, Mark; Stohlgren, Thomas Using the Maxent program for species distribution modelling to assess invasion risk
MAXENT is a software package used to relate known species occurrences to information describing the environment, such as climate, topography, anthropogenic features or soil data, and forecast the presence or absence of a species at unsampled locations. This particular method is one of the most popular species distribution modelling techniques...
Venette, R.C; Jarnevich, Catherine S.; Young, Nicholas E. From hybrid swarms to swarms of hybrids
Science has shown that the introgression or hybridization of modern humans (Homo sapiens) with Neanderthals up to 40,000 YBP may have led to the swarm of modern humans on earth. However, there is little doubt that modern trade and transportation in support of the humans has continued to introduce additional species, genotypes, and hybrids to every...
Stohlgren, Thomas J.; Szalanski, Allen L; Gaskin, John F.; Young, Nicholas E.; West, Amanda M.; Jarnevich, Catherine S.; Tripodi, Amber Mapping current and potential distribution of non-native Prosopis juliflora in the Afar region of Ethiopia
We used correlative models with species occurrence points, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) vegetation indices, and topo-climatic predictors to map the current distribution and potential habitat of invasive Prosopis juliflora in Afar, Ethiopia. Time-series of MODIS Enhanced Vegetation Indices (EVI) and Normalized Difference...
Wakie, Tewodros; Evangelista, Paul H.; Jarnevich, Catherine S.; Laituri, Melinda Cross-scale assessment of potential habitat shifts in a rapidly changing climate
We assessed the ability of climatic, environmental, and anthropogenic variables to predict areas of high-risk for plant invasion and consider the relative importance and contribution of these predictor variables by considering two spatial scales in a region of rapidly changing climate. We created predictive distribution models, using Maxent, for...
Jarnevich, Catherine S.; Holcombe, Tracy R.; Bella, Elizabeth S.; Carlson, Matthew L.; Graziano, Gino; Lamb, Melinda; Seefeldt, Steven S.; Morisette, Jeffrey T. Regional distribution models with lack of proximate predictors: Africanized honeybees expanding north
Species distribution models have often been hampered by poor local species data, reliance on coarse-scale climate predictors and the assumption that species–environment relationships, even with non-proximate predictors, are consistent across geographical space. Yet locally accurate maps of invasive species, such as the Africanized honeybee (AHB)...
Jarnevich, Catherine S.; Esaias, Wayne E.; Ma, Peter L.A.; Morisette, Jeffery T.; Nickeson, Jaime E.; Stohlgren, Thomas J.; Holcombe, Tracy R.; Nightingale, Joanne M.; Wolfe, Robert E.; Tan, Bin The Hyper-Envelope Modeling Interface (HEMI): A Novel Approach Illustrated Through Predicting Tamarisk (Tamarix spp.) Habitat in the Western USA
Habitat suitability maps are commonly created by modeling a species’ environmental niche from occurrences and environmental characteristics. Here, we introduce the hyper-envelope modeling interface (HEMI), providing a new method for creating habitat suitability models using Bezier surfaces to model a species niche in environmental space. HEMI...
Graham, Jim; Young, Nick; Jarnevich, Catherine S.; Newman, Greg; Evangelista, Paul; Stohlgren, Thomas J. VisTrails SAHM: visualization and workflow management for species habitat modeling
The Software for Assisted Habitat Modeling (SAHM) has been created to both expedite habitat modeling and help maintain a record of the various input data, pre- and post-processing steps and modeling options incorporated in the construction of a species distribution model through the established workflow management and visualization VisTrails...
Morisette, Jeffrey T.; Jarnevich, Catherine S.; Holcombe, Tracy R.; Talbert, Colin B.; Ignizio, Drew A.; Talbert, Marian; Silva, Claudio; Koop, David; Swanson, Alan; Young, Nicholas E. Using habitat suitability models to target invasive plant species surveys
Managers need new tools for detecting the movement and spread of nonnative, invasive species. Habitat suitability models are a popular tool for mapping the potential distribution of current invaders, but the ability of these models to prioritize monitoring efforts has not been tested in the field. We tested the utility of an iterative sampling...
Crall, Alycia W.; Jarnevich, Catherine S.; Panke, Brendon; Young, Nick; Renz, Mark; Morisette, Jeffrey Predicting tamarisk current and future distribution
Sher, Anna; Quigley, Martin F.; Jarnevich, C.S.; Evangelista, P.; Graham, J. Diet and conservation implications of an invasive chameleon, Chamaeleo jacksonii (Squamata: Chamaeleonidae) in Hawaii
We summarize information on current distribution of the invasive lizard Chamaeleo jacksonii and predict its potential distribution in the Hawaiian Islands. Potential distribution maps are based on climate models developed from known localities in its native range and its Hawaiian range. We also present results of analysis of stomach contents of a...
Kraus, Fred; Medeiros, Arthur; Preston, David; Jarnevich, Catherine S.; Rodda, Gordon H.