Dr. Laura Jiménez
Instructor, Center for Wildlife Studies
Ph.D. Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas
M.S. Probability & Statistics, Center for Research in Mathematics (CIMAT), Mexico
B.S. Mathematics, University of Guanajuato, Mexico
Laura is a quantitative biologist who studies how organisms’ responses to environmental gradients shape global biodiversity patterns and the geographic distributions of species. She has developed inferential methods to characterize species’ climatic niches and predict the potential effects of climate change in reshaping species distributions or the spread of invasive species. Another focus of her research is comparing different statistical methods to estimate richness and population densities, with the goal of improving future surveys to ensure efficient estimations.
Some of her current research involves using remote sensing data and genomic data to study the distribution and community composition of marine plankton through the application of machine learning algorithms.
Teaching
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Marques, R, Jiménez, L., Ferreira-Krüger, R, \& Jiménez-García, D. (In print). Integrating biotic factors into niche modeling: a case study with Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus in the Americas. Frontiers in Biogeography.
Alegría-Castellanos, A., Jiménez, L., & Alvarado, J. J. (2024). Ecological niches applied to socioeconomic phenomena: The case of the Colombian internal conflict. Peace & Conflict Studies, 31(1): 3. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/pcs/vol31/iss1/3/
Jiménez, L., Fieberg, J.R., McCartney, M., & Ferguson, J.M. (2024). A framework for modeling the impacts of adaptive search intensity on the efficiency of abundance surveys. Ecology, 105(9): e4396. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.4396
Edwards-Calma, K., Jiménez, L., Zenil-Ferguson, R., Heyduk, K., Thomas, M. K., & Tribble C. M. (2024). Conservation applications of ecological niche modeling: non-native ferns may compete with native ferns for limited suitable habitat in Hawaiian dryland ecosystems. Applications in Plant Sciences, 12(3): e11598. https://doi.org/10.1002/aps3.11598
Ferguson, J.M., Jiménez, L., Keyes, A.A., Hilding, A., McCartney, M.A., St. Clair, K., Johnson, D.H., & Fieberg, J.R. (2023). A comparison of survey method efficiencies for estimating densities of zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha). PeerJ, 11: e15528. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15528
Strubbe, D., Jiménez, L., Barbosa, A. M., Davis, A., Lens, L., & Rahbek, C. (2023). Mechanistic models project bird invasions with accuracy. Nature Communications, 14: 2520. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-38329-4
Hall, C. M., Romero-Alvarez, D., Martz, M., Santana-Propper, E., Versluis, L., Jiménez, L., ... & Wagner, D. M. (2022). Low risk of acquiring melioidosis from the environment in the continental United States. PloS one, 17(7): e0270997. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0270997
Peterson, A. T., Aiello-Lammens, M., ... Jiménez, L., ... & Zurell, D. (2022). ENM2020: A free online course and set of resources on modeling species’ niches and distributions. Biodiversity Informatics, 17. https://doi.org/10.17161/bi.v17i.15016
Jiménez, L. & Soberón, J. (2022). Estimating the fundamental niche: Accounting for the uneven availability of existing climates in the calibration area. Ecological Modelling, 464: 109823. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2021.109823
Machado-Stredel, F., Freeman, B., Jiménez-García, D., Cobos, M.E., Nuñez-Penichet, C., Jiménez, L., Komp, E., Perktas, U., Khalighifar, A., Ingenloff, K., Tapondjou, W., de Silva, T., Fernando, S., Osorio-Olvera, L., & Peterson, A.T. (2022). On the potential of documenting decadal-scale avifaunal change from before-and-after comparisons of museum and observational data across North America. Avian Research, 13(1): 100005. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avrs.2022.100005
Nuñez-Penichet, C., Osorio-Olvera, L., Gonzalez, V.H., Cobos, M.E., Jiménez, L., DeRaad,D.A., Alkishe, A., Contreras-Díaz, R.G., Nava-Bolaños, A., Utsumi, K., Ashraf, U., Adeboje, A., Peterson, A.T., & Soberon, J. (2021). Geographic potential of the world’s largest hornet, Vespa mandarinia Smith (Hymenoptera: Vespidae), worldwide and particularly in North America. PeerJ, 9: e10690. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10690
Jiménez, L. & Soberón, J. (2020). Leaving the area under the receiving operating characteristic curve behind: An evaluation method for species distribution modelling applications based on presence-only data. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 11(12): 1571-1586. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.13479
Khalighifar, A., Jiménez, L., Nuñez-Penichet, C., Freeman, B., Ingenloff, K., Jiménez-García, D., & Peterson, T. (2020). Inventory statistics meet big data: Complications for estimating numbers of species. PeerJ, 8: e8872. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.8872
Simoes, M., Romero-Alvarez, D., Nuñez-Penichet, C., Jiménez, L., & Cobos, M. E. (2020). General theory and good practices in ecological niche modeling: A basic guide. Biodiversity Informatics, 15(2): 67-68. https://doi.org/10.17161/bi.v15i2.13376
Jiménez, L., Soberón, J., Christen, J.A., & Soto, D. (2019). On the problem of modeling a fundamental niche from occurrence data. Ecological Modelling, 397: 74-83. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2019.01.020
Cobos, M. E., Jiménez, L., Nuñez-Penichet, C., Romero-Alvarez, D., & Simoes, M. (2018). Sample data and training modules for cleaning biodiversity information. Biodiversity Informatics, 13: 49-50. https://doi.org/10.17161/bi.v13i0.7600
Ingenloff, K., Hensz, C. M., Anamza, T., Barve, V., Campbell, L. P., Cooper, J. C., Komp, E., Jiménez, L., Olson, K. V., Osorio-Olvera, L., Owens, H. L., Peterson, A. T., Samy, A. M., Simoes, M., & Soberón, J. (2017). Predictable invasion dynamics in North American populations of the Eurasian collared dove Streptopelia decaocto. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 284(1862): 20171157. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.1157