Order ready-to-submit essays. No Plagiarism Guarantee!
Note: Our papers are 100% human-written, not AI-generated.
We Write Essays for Students
Tell us about your assignment and we will find the best writer for your paper
Get Help Now!
Biodiversity estimation assignment
Introduction
Understanding the variety and frequency of species in a given area (biodiversity) is a key challenge in biology. Climate change, invasive species, habitat destruction and overexploitation are all causes of biodiversity loss, which is accelerating at an unprecedented rate. Understanding changes in biodiversity is fundamental to assessing our impact on the environment, identifying species and habitats which are most at risk and evaluating conservation efforts.
Biodiversity assessments must be data driven to ensure they are valid. The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (www.gbif.org) is a web site designed to provide access to biodiversity data from numerous studies, currently it holds over 1.4 billion records, from over 50,000 datasets.
This assignment will provide an introduction to working with biodiversity data and estimating the biodiversity for a number of locations within the UK and how geographical data can be visualised.
Data
A data set of mammals has been created from GBIF, Mammal.txt contains 125,000 sightings of mammals. Each entry consists of three fields, a species name, a latitude and a longitude, the fields are separated using tabs. A data set of birds (Birds.txt) is also included for testing purposes, it is in the same file format.
Details
A Python script “Biodiversity.py” contains two functions CalculateDistance which calculates the distance between two locations. CalculateDistance takes four variables, the latitude and longitude of the first location and the latitude and longitude of the second location, it returns the distance in km between the two locations. The second function, LineToList, converts a line of the input file to a list of three elements. Braking the line on tabs, the function takes a line and returns a list. Biodiversity estimation assignment
The assignment is broken down into three sections, which get progressively harder and require more independent development.
Assignment 1) Find the number of animals at a given distance from a specified location (40%)
Write a function LocationCount which returns the number of animals found within a specified distance of a given location, the function should take four parameters, a file name containing the data, a distance in kilometres, and the latitude and longitude of the location. It should return the number of animals found within the specified distance of the location.
Rough pseudo code for the function is given below
- i) Load the data from the file into a list ii) For every line in the list
Use LineToList function to split each line into its three components, species name, latitude and longitude Use the CalculateDistance function to determine if the animal is within the specified distance of the location and keep a count of the total number who are. iii) Return the number of animals which were within the specified distance of the location
Your script should call LocationCount with the data file “Mammal.txt”, a distance of 10.0, a latitude of 54.988056 and longitude of -1.619444 (Newcastle). The result should be printed to the screen.
2) Visualise the data using KML files (30%)
Google maps allows you to visualise geographical data by plotting features on the map. These features are specified in a kml file. Information about creating kml files and viewing them with google maps can be found in the handbook and lecture notes.
Write a function PrintLocation which takes four parameters, a file name containing animal location data, a distance in kilometres, and the latitude and longitude of the location. It should output, to a file called “output.kml”, in kml format all animals found within the distance of the specified location. This function will be similar to LocationCount in its logic. Biodiversity estimation assignment
Your script should call PrintLocation with the data file “Mammal.txt”, a distance of 15.0, a latitude of 51.452884 and longitude of -0.973906 (Reading).
3) Calculate the biodiversity in a specific region (30%)
Write a function BiodiversityCount which takes four parameters, a file name containing animal location data, a distance in kilometres, and the latitude and longitude of the location. The function should return the number of unique species found in the area.
Your script should call BiodiversityCount with the data file “Mammal.txt”, a distance of 25.0, a latitude of 51.508129 and longitude of -0.128005 (London). The result should be printed to the screen.
Deliverables 1) Your Python script implementing the program defined above, the code should be well written,
clear, commented and correct. The script should run without errors or warnings. You can submit one python file with the solution to all three parts or three python files, one for each part.
Files should be zipped together and uploaded to blackboard before the deadline. I will test the scripts with different, locations, animal data files and distances. Please make sure your program works with these changes. To zip files together on Windows, place all files in a folder, right click on the folder and select Send to → compressed (zipped) folder, this will create a zip file with files in. Biodiversity estimation assignment
Need Help with a similar Assignment?
The post Biodiversity estimation assignment appeared first on EssayPanthers.
Welcome to originalessaywriters.com, our friendly and experienced essay writers are available 24/7 to complete all your assignments. We offer high-quality academic essays written from scratch to guarantee top grades to all students. All our papers are 100% plagiarism-free and come with a plagiarism report, upon request
Tell Us “Write My Essay for Me” and Relax! You will get an original essay well before your submission deadline.
