3-6 November 2026

Understanding marine ecosystems requires integrating diverse spatial datasets—from bathymetric maps and oceanographic data to species distributions and human activity layers. This hands-on course will equip participants with the skills to process, analyze, and visualize marine spatial data using R.
Throughout four sessions, participants will learn how to handle benthic and pelagic environmental data, biodiversity records, and human impact layers to support marine research and conservation efforts.

This course is ideal for marine ecologists, oceanographers, and conservation scientists with a basic knowledge of R, and they are looking to enhance their spatial data analysis skills with R.

1.     Process and analyze marine spatial datasets (biotic, abiotic, and anthropogenic)
2.     Create high-quality visualizations for marine research and conservation
3.     Integrate multiple data sources to support marine spatial planning

Daily on-line meetings,  15:00-18:00 CET; offline communication through Slack.

Day 1: Benthic Ecosystems – Terrain Analysis & Habitat Mapping

    Introduction to benthic terrain modeling

    Creating habitat maps from bathymetric data

    Using spatial metrics to analyze seafloor features

Day 2: Pelagic Ecosystems – Oceanography & Physical Data

    Accessing and processing oceanographic datasets (e.g., CMEMS)

    Handling 3D and temporal data

    Visualizing Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) data

Day 3: Biodiversity Observations – Species Distribution & Movement

    Integrating species data from OBIS, GBIF, and Aquamaps

    Accessing biological information from Sealifebase and Fishbase

    Mapping animal movement patterns for ecological research

Day 4: Conservation & Marine Spatial Planning

    Analyzing human pressures (e.g., fisheries, maritime traffic)

    Using Global Fishing Watch and EMODnet data

    Visualizing Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) and Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)

"I loved the course. I discovered useful websites and learned how to download and use the information in R, as well as how to apply it to my daily work. Although I would have liked it to be a little longer so that we could have gone into more depth on some topics, it was a very comprehensive course and I will recommend it to my colleagues."

"Dr. March did an excellent job! I really appreciated walking us through where to find the data, how to download it, and the context for how it could be used and pitfalls."

"I am very grateful for Dr March's professionalism and excellent work in developing all parts of the course. It is a course that I will recommend to my colleagues."

1 - Interactive Maps with R - ONLINE, 13-14 May

2 - Generalised Linear Models in R - ONLINE, 25-29 May

3- Species distribution modeling with Bayesian additive regression tree (BART) methods - ONLINE, 1-3 July

4 - Species distribution and ecological niche modelling in R - ONLINE, 14-18 September