João Afonso Poester-Carvalho

Biologist

Hello, my name is João Afonso Poester-Carvalho and I am graduated in Biological Sciences (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande - FURG). During my Graduation, I focused on Biogeography and species distribution patterns (e.g. Poester-Carvalho et al. 2023), with different taxa as study systems. I am able to use techniques such as Endemicity Analysis and Hierarchical Clustering to better understand species distribution patterns across the Neotropics. Currently, I am a Masters Student researching community ecology and ecophysiological resposes of dormant invertebrate stages.

During much of my graduation, I focused on studying programming and GIS tools to solve problems associated with my work.

RStats is one of my main interests of study. I am continuously trying to evolve my skills with Spatial Analysis and especially Statistical Analysis.

I am much interested in studying Statistical and Machine Learning Models and their applications to ecological data, especially to conservation focus.

Currently, I have been trying to develop small projects with the skills I learn, such as analysis employing various Statistical Tools.

Skills

I am especially interested and continuously developing my skills on:

  • R Programming

    • General data wrangling problems - I particularly like this

    • General dataviz techniques (working on these in my GitHub page!)

    • Quarto projects (such as this website!)

    • Interactive reports (Reactable; Leaflet)

    • Integration with Git and Github (version control, etc.)

    • Deploying websites with GitHub Pages (I am currently developing a publication with a dashboard for species distribution)

       

  • QGIS and R map building
    • Manipulation of spatial data in R
    • Using the “sf” package in R

       

  • Statistical techniques:

    • Inferential Analysis

      • Simple and Multivariate Linear Models

      • Simple and Multivariate Generalized Linear Models

    • Multivariate Clustering and Ordination Analysis

      • Clustering Analysis (UPGMA; WPGMA) - I mastered these techniques during my Graduation to perform Biogeographical Regionalization
      • Dimensionality Reduction Analysis (PCA)

       

  • Machine Learning Algorithms - still beginning on this topic

       

  • Community Ecology, Macroecology and Biogeography
    • Species Occurences Databases Cleaning (e.g. Ecology Datapapers)
    • GBIF Data
    • Trait Data
  • Ecological Niche Modelling
    • Currently developing myself on this topic, especially working with the “SDM” R package