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Kevin L. Sallee, Independent private consultant, 3154 53rd Street, Sacramento, CA 95820 USA, and Karyn J. Sernka, Independent private consultant, 34533 Oakville Road SW, Albany, OR 97321 USA

We are presenting the Biotas™ computer program which has been designed to facilitate the descriptive and statistical analysis of biogeographical data on a PC using Windows or OS/2r. Biotas™ can quickly and easily analyze data for home range and habitat use, spatial and temporal interactions, or quadrate and transect counts in conjunction with and in relation to geographical coverages. Presentations of possible home range and habitat use analyses using Biotas™ will include both traditional estimators such as the minimum convex polygon and harmonic mean as well as highlight more recent advents such as the use of adaptive kernel and Voronoi polygons. Preliminary data analysis with data area curves will also be discussed. Methods of importing habitat coverages into Biotas™ will be covered as well as techniques for using exploratory analysis on spatial data and extracting statistical inferences. Biotas™ includes typical geographical analysis methods and summary statistics on landscape polygons including perimeter to area ratios, landscape complexity indices, and polygon summary statistics. Biotas™ offers additional analysis tools for the spatial analysis of point patterns with nearest neighbor analysis, spatial association and covariation, tests of complete spatial randomness, temporal and spatial autocorrelations, permutations and simulation capabilities, and programmability. The ability to limit features included in analysis and/or display are available via complete querying capabilities. Hands-on experimentation with the program will be encouraged.