Implied absence data in at least one dataset raises procedural issue

A placeholder for now:

I had a discussion with Mike Austin (CSIRO) about a dataset quite a few of us 
have worked on (Mike, Margaret Cawsey, Nick Nicholls etc) and it transpires at 
least one version of this dataset has come into the ALA via NSW Parks or 
subsequent equivalent.

The dataset contains the presence of TREE species in .25 or .1ha sites. The 
implication is that we can infer many absences of tree species on all of these 
~10,000 sites. This would imply we could have of the order of ~>100,000 absence 
records.

It should be possible to automate or at least semi-automate the generation of 
these absence records at the survey sites using known tree distributions (via a 
geographic or environmental convex hull or equivalent)? 

This issue has also exposed another GAP in the ALA: The inability to generate 
sites x species matrices from survey points. This was what Mike Austin was 
asking about at the ALA Symposium. If we eventually get AEKOS data or any other 
bio-survey data, this will be a BASIC requirement. This is a separate but 
related issue that I'll raise.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by leebel...@gmail.com on 16 Jun 2014 at 5:21

bsed / ala

Implied absence data in at least one dataset raises procedural issue #703