Statistical Modeling Ecology Group

Missions & Goals

Statistical Modeling Ecology Group (SMEG)

The Statistical Modeling Ecology Group (SMEG) is an inter-disciplinary research group, linking researchers from the Schools of Mathematics and Statistics, Biology and Ecology.

Our aim is to develop and apply advanced mathematical and statistical methods to collecting and analyzing ecological/biological data, thereby improving the understanding and management of natural resources and their environment.

Some active topics of research include:

– Economic evaluation of natural resources;
– Spatial-temporal distribution of biological resources;
– Modeling population dynamics;
– Modeling ecological point process data;
– Integrated biological and socioeconomic models.

SMEG members belong to a number of research Spanish institutions, such as the Instituto Español de Oceanografia, the University of Valencia and of Elche. Here, we help to form students, we cooperate with the government in initiatives, and we provide consultancy to different private and public companies assessing.

Smeg & GitHub

As research group we recognise the importance of reproducible and transparency research. For this reason we set up a GitHub page in which you can fin the R-code of the models that we are developing.

Repository 1

Incorporating biotic information in SDMs a coregionalised approach.

Repository 2

Coregionalization.

Repository 3

SDMs with INLA.

Recent Years

Publications in Numbers

2019

2020

2021

Members

Meet Our Members

The SMEG members form a multidisciplinary team which includes mathematicians, statisticians and biologists that belong to a number of different research Spanish institutions, such as the Instituto Español de Oceanografia, the University of Valencia and of Elche. This team develops several activities as teaching, forming students, as well as providing consultancy to different private and public companies. Our main aim is to develop and apply advanced mathematical and statistical methods to analyzing ecological/biological data, thereby improving the understanding and management of natural resources and their environment.

Dr.Maria Grazia Pennino

CV Summary

I am a marine biologist, with a master’s degree in Biostatistic and a PhD in Mathematics & Statistics. Mostly, I have worked with Bayesian spatial-temporal models to estimate and predict the distribution of relevant important species in order to identify sensible habitats. I have also applied these knowledge to describe fishers behavior, to assess highly discards and by-catches hot-spots, and to identify nursery areas using different kind of fishery dependent and independent data. I have studied different fisheries (industrial and small-scale/artisanal) and several ecosystems (Mediterranean, Indian Ocean and Brazilian coastal areas), working at different spatial (from local to global) and temporal scale. Recently, I have also been interested in linking social and ecological factors in the species distribution models framework to understand how they could affect the distribution of the species.

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Dr. Maria Grazia Pennino

Researcher

Instituto Español de Oceanografía

Centro Oceanográfico de Vigo

Subida a Radio Faro, 50-52

36390 Vigo (Pontevedra) – Spain

Email: grazia.pennino@ieo.es

ORCID ID: 0000-0002-7577-2617

SCOPUS Author ID: 1213553

WoS Researcher ID: E-3454-2015

ResearchGate: Maria Grazia Pennino

Google Scholar: Maria Grazia Pennino

Dr. David V. Conesa

CV Summary

Being a Statistician, my main interest has been always in applying Statistics in the real world. In line with this, I have been involved in the analysis of waiting lists for transplants, efficiency of banks, early detection of epidemics, environmental performance, and so on. Since 2010, species distribution has been my main focus, with papers related to the describing the spatial distribution of plant diseases, veterinary diseases, and several fish species.

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Dr. David V. Conesa-Guillén

Full Professor of Statistics and Operations Research

Departament d’Estadística i Investigació Operativa, Universitat de València,

C/ Dr. Moliner 50,

46100 Burjassot (Valencia) – Spain

Email: david.v.conesa@uv.es

ORCID ID: 0000-0002-5442-5691

SCOPUS Author ID: 6602937342

WoS Researcher ID: E-8639-2016

ResearchGate: David Conesa

Google Scholar: David Conesa

Dr. Antonio López Quílez

CV Summary

My research activity is characterized by the combination of methodological developments and practical applications in the context of Bayesian Statistics of spatial and spatio-temporal models. In this research work I have collaborated in many different scientific fields: epidemiology, agriculture, environment, geography, veterinary science, oceanography, etc. These collaborations have led to publications in different areas, multidisciplinary projects, contracts with companies and government agencies, specialized training courses and consulting work.

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Dr. Antonio López-Quílez

Full Professor of Statistics and Operations Research

Depto. de Estadística e Invest. Operativa

Universitat de València

C/ Dr. Moliner 50,

46100 Burjassot (Valencia) – Spain

Email: antonio.lopez@uv.es

ORCID ID: 0000-0002-7022-9260

SCOPUS Author ID: 57203926201

WoS Researcher ID: H-5945-2011

ResearchGate: Antonio López-Quílez

Google Scholar: Antonio López-Quílez.

Dr. Xavier Barber

CV Summary

As I like statistics, I enjoy to apply statistics to the real world, and ecology is one of my favourite fields to apply my knowledge. I regularly use Bayesian statistics, and I try to apply the spatio-temporal hierarchical techniques to the ecology, especially in the field of Species Distribution Modelling. Nowadays the multivariate relationship among species as a prey-predator or co-habitant species is my main theorical and applied interest. You may meet me listening to good music (black metal, trash, punk, etc.) or biking over the mountains on weekend.

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Dr. Xavier Barber

Associate Professor

Instituto Centro de Investigación Operativa (CIO)

Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche

Avda. de la Universidad s/n

3202 Elche (Alicante) – Spain

Email: xbarber@umh.es

ORCID ID: 000-0003-3079-5855

SCOPUS Author ID: 57211460102

WoS Researcher ID: A-6204-2009

ResearchGate: Xavier Barber

Google Scholar: Xavier Barber

Dr. Joaquín Martínez

CV Summary

I am currently a postdoc researcher at BCAM. I obtained the degree in Mathematics in 2013 at the University of Valencia. Posteriorly, I received the Master’s Degree in Biostatistics in 2015 at the same University. In 2019, I finished the Ph.D in Statistics and Optimization which started as a collaboration of the University of Valencia and the Valencian Institute for Agricultural Research (IVIA). The main objectives of the thesis were to apply Bayesian spatio-temporal models in plant disease epidemiology and marine and vegetal species distribution, and develop new methodological tools to solve statistical problems appeared in the application of this models in real contexts.

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Dr. Joaquín Martínez.Minaya

Research Fellow

Data Science Area, Basque Center for Applied Mathematics (BCAM), Mazarredo Zumarkalea, 14, 48009 Bilbo (Bizkaia) – Spain

Email: jomartinez@bcamath.org

ORCID ID: 0000-0002-1016-8734

ResearchGate: Joaquín Martínez.Minaya

Google Scholar: Joaquín Martínez.Minaya

Dr. Iosu Paradinas

CV Summary

I am a marine biologist that few years ago turned to the dark side and embraced statis-tics. My research interests focus on fisheries distribution modeling and fisheries spatial planning. I am addicted to the INLA and mgcv R packages, although I appreciate many other packages too. Beer is my weakness.

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Dr. Iosu Paradinas

Marie Curie Research Fellow

SOI, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 8LB- UK

Email: paradinas.iosu@gmail.com

ORCID ID: 0000-0001-7072-2875

ResearchGate: Iosu Paradinas

Google Scholar: Iosu Paradinas

Dr. José Bellido Millán

CV Summary

Along my entire life I have been interested in how to understand nature and particularly the sea, which led me to ecology and numerical modeling. Currently I work at the Spanish Institute of Oceanography, in its Oceanographic Centre of Murcia, and I have now more than 25 years of experience in marine and fisheries research. I have been working both with demersal and pelagic resources in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea. Because my expertise on fisheries, I often advice to policymakers and fishery managers for issues related to the Common Fishery Policy. I always try to disseminate my research to reach not only researchers but also citizens, adapting the media and language for every target.