2 months back i was doing Ganges river Dolphin survey in River Ganga in India and for this we have taken the Gps coordinates of all the Dolphin counts together with the full length of the entire survey stretch, so in this a vector model in the form of Point and Line was relevant for me and together with this i have also gathered the river bank habitat and water quality parameters of the entire survey stretch which i think is good to represent in the Raster model.
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I haven’t collected a lot of different data types as I am relatively new to the field but what I have collected so far works perfectly as a set of vector points. It is simply the coordinates of locations where we have seen particular species, so the points are discrete, measurable, and individual points.
For the coral reef data i think vector data using line transect is is best working.
In my study on coral reef,both types of geospatial data will be used.as i will be using line transect and identifying type of coral
I am measuring various proxies of soil ecosystem health along transects crossing fence-lines, to compare pastures. For this a vector model will be appropriate, with lines representing the transects. If I also use remote-sensing data, such as NDVI, this will be represented as a continuous raster layer.
With day to day sightings of the birds, i think a vector layer will be used with all the information on the single point in the attributes.
When we would like to see in what vegetation they like to spend more time in i think the Raster layer of different vegetation types and densities of vegetation will then be used.
I am in the field of enviromental management. I think in assessing the vegetation type raster data would be used and to assess the features such as roads, water bodies, wetlands, Vector model would be appropriate.
For my work I am currently mostly using vector models. Points for the location we have seen bats and polygons for the site location. Currently I am not using any raster data yet.
Exactly what I really need to get to practice using my own data
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Considering that for my learning goal I assumed I could create a map of the distribution of the sponge species I studied for my PhD, I would say my geospatial data are vectors, in particular points (in case of single sponge specimens) and polygons (in case I’d find patches of individuals of the same sponge species). Would everyone agree on that?
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I think for past avian fieldwork I would have used vector for the GPS points where mating calls were heard/ recorders were deployed and I would have used raster to describe the terrain and vegetation in the areas surveyed.
For my current work with seagrasses I would use vector for the survey transect locations and the seagrass bed area and raster to describe the aquatic vegetation in the area
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If I was to get a job as a Site Manager (fingers crossed!) I would use Raster (thematic) to represent landcover including habitats, Raster (quantities) to represent elevation, Vector points to represent fauna sightings and Vector lines to represent ecological surveys done as line transects.
I hope I got that right. I still don’t understand why we should use Raster thematic instead of Vector polygons to record landcover types. Is it because Vector is based on coordinates whilst Raster is based on area?
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I am assuming that for my future work, I will be using vector data to map feeding stations, home ranges and camera traps. Perhaps some raster for the vegetation/habitat type
The spatial data model that works best for my field data is the vector (for discrete features).
I do annual vegetation surveys in a Biodiversity Observatory, I use vector data a lot to know the occurrence of certain endemic species as well as the distribution of the most abundant families. And for that, I use points as a vector layer.
That’s right! I think the same 
Probably raster for habitats, and vectors for MPA boundaries.
vector data - GPS points collected while conducting animal road counts
Raster file - vegetation types layers for the area i conduct ground counts on
I use both vector and raster spatial for my field data. I have my GPS on tracking mode to take a point of my swim pattern every 10 second. My GPS tracks are vector data. While I am swimming in the reef flats I conduct surveys to determine the type of macroalgae present every 30 second of my swim, the density of the macroalgae and the percent cover for hard live coral. The data collected from these surveys I would say are raster data.
I collected Vector data when conducting Texas horned lizard monitoring with radio telemetry and GPS equipment. I used points to map individual lizards within the study site throughout the season, and also drew polygons of home-ranges of each individual. I would also overlay the Vector data onto an aerial image of the study site, which would be considered continuous Raster data.
I’m working with vector data since I’m using GPS fixes of tagged wild cats and creating polygons of its home range area. Perhaps will use raster data as well to work on habitat selection models over a map of its range. Using several variables in individual raster files stacked on one another of the study site map.
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