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Project Map
• Summary
• Introduction
• Invasiveness
• Data
    • Attributes
    • Aquisition
• Data Sets
    • Training Set
    • Prediction Set
• Methods
    • Initial Experiments
    • Neural Network
• Results
• Bibliography
Data Attributes
        Biological trait data that might be associated with weedy behavior proved to be very hard to acquire, the acquisition process itself for this type of data being extremely time consuming and cost prohibitive. Goodwin et al. (1998) is among those who have concluded that biological data is of limited value. As a result, the majority of attributes used to develop these models consist of geographic data.

        Since some species were reported only as either “native” or “exotic” in Flora Europaea (thus leaving the latitude attribute blank), we resorted to specifying either a “native” or “exotic” latitudinal range (i.e., max. latitude – min latitude). For example, if a species was not known to be native in the list of countries according to Flora Europaea, its native latitudinal range resulted in being zero.

Based on the theories described before, the list of factors contributing to plant invasiveness was formed as follows:

Input variables
Variable name
Type
Description
1. Native range: numericLatitudinal range where native in Europe/Asia
2. Native count:numericNumber of countires in Europe/Asia where native
3. Native area:numericArea (sq mi) where native in Europe/Asia
4. Exotic range:numericLatitudinal range where exotic in Europe/Asia
5. Exotic count:numericNumber of countires in Europe/Asia where exotic
6. Exotic area:numericArea (sq mi) where exotic in Europe/Asia
7. Absolute range:numericLatitudinal range where native AND exotic in Europe/Asia
8. Absolute count:numericNumber of countires in Europe/Asia where native AND exotic
9. Absolute area:numericTotal area (sq. m.) where native AND exotic in Europe/Asia
10. Life history:nominalAnnual, biennial, perennial, or combinations
11. Congeneric natives:numeric Number of native species from the same genus in the Pacific Northwest
12. Number of counties:numericThe number of counties (in all five northwestern states) where reported for the first time during the corresponding time period
13. Number of records:numericNumber of records in INVADERS
14. Veg. reproduction:booleanYes/No -- whether or not a plant reproduces vegetatively
15. Cultivated:booleanWhether or not a plant has been cultivated
16. Literature count:numericNumber of weed related literature sources from The Global Compendium of Weeds
17. Status count:numericNumber of "status" listings from The Global Compendium of Weeds
18. Noxious elsewhere:numericThe number of states/provinces where the exotic is listed as noxious (outside of ID and MT).
19. Spread Rate:numericPlants spread rate (number of counties infested per year).
20. Life form:nominalForb, tree, shrub, grass-like or spore-bearing vascular plant.


Output variable: 1. Weed/Not weed.


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