What is GARP?
The acronym GARP stands for Genetic Algorithm for Rule-set Production. GARP was originally developed by David Stockwell, at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. GARP is a genetic algorithm that creates an ecological niche model for a species that represents the environmental conditions where that species would be able to maintain populations. GARP uses as input a set of point localities where the species is known to occur and a set of geographic layers representing the environmental parameters that might limit the species’ ability to survive. GARP tries, interactively, to find non-random correlations between the presence and absence of the species and the values of the environmental parameters, using several types of rules. Each rule type implements a different method for building species prediction models. Currently there are four types of rules implemented: atomic, logistic regression, bioclimatic envelope and negated bioclimatic envelope rules. For a comprehensive description of GARP
