In this course, you will be introduced to three principle tools often used by ecologists- R for statistical analyses, Maxent for developing spatial models for predicting species distributions and QGIS used to analyze and represent spatial patterns in habitat characteristics of species.  These are all open-source/ freely available software. You will use all three tools to work on a semester-long project focused on modeling the distribution of a species of your choice based on a set of niche characteristics.