Biodiversity Data Use

Training regions (or study areas) are the areas from which model algorithms sample the background for model inference. In the case of presence-background models such as Maxent, this will be the area from which the model will randomly pick pseudoabsences that are use for calibrating the model. The training area can be thought of as the areas where the species could potentially experience envinronmental conditions. The species may not actually occur there, but it is possible that the species can reach those areas. Points to consider when delimiting your training regions are:

In the above example, the isthmus of Panama acts as effective barrier to the isolation of the Panamic porkfish to the Pacific and the Porkfish to the Caribbean. Training regions for each species would not contain areas on the opposite side of the Isthmus from where the species was found.