ResNatSeed is an R package and Shiny web app to predict the REStoration potential of NATive SEEDs using topographic factors.
The United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration is highlighting the importance of restoring ecosystems and trying to overcome the actual limitations to the process.
ResNatSeed born to overcome the problem of subjectivity during the assessment of suitability between native seeds and a site that must be restored.
The package allows to assess the restoration potential of native seeds in a restoration site using topographic factors only. The input data are the composition of the seed mixture or the donor grassland and the elevation, slope, and aspect of the restoration site. Such topographic factors are easily retrievable both in the field and through any Geographic Information System (GIS) software.
The suitability of the species mixture for restoring a site is based on the modeling of a large database of vegetation surveys, characterized by botanical composition associated to the abovementioned topographic factors. Such a database can be either a default one, which is related to the Piedmont Region (NW Italy), or provided by the user to allow the usage of ResNatSeed for any geographical area.
The restoration potential is expressed with two synthetic indexes (named Suitability Index and Reliability Index ), readily interpretable as well as they range between 0 (low suitability and realiability) and 1 (high suitability and realiability).
Installation
You can install ResNatSeed from GitHub with:
install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("MarcoPittarello/ResNatSeed")A Shiny App version of ResNatSeed is also avaiable at the following web site: https://marco-pittarello.shinyapps.io/ResNatSeed_ShinyApp/