Journal article
Evaluating 318 continental-scale species distribution models over a 60-year prediction horizon: what factors influence the reliability of predictions?
Alejandra Moran-Ordonez, Jose J Lahoz-Monfort, Jane Elith, Brendan A Wintle
Global Ecology and Biogeography | Wiley | Published : 2017
DOI: 10.1111/geb.12545
Abstract
Aim Species distribution models (SDMs) are currently the most widely used tools in ecology for evaluating the suitability of environments for biodiversity in the face of future environmental change. In this study we seek to provide an assessment of the predictive performance of SDMs over time. How well do SDMs predict for future time periods and what factors influence predictive performance? Innovation We used a historical spatially explicit database of 1.8 million occurrence records for 318 tetrapod species from across continental Australia over the period 1950–2013. We fitted distribution models for each species to data from four multi‐decadal time slices and used these to predict the spe..
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Awarded by ARC Future Fellowships
Funding Acknowledgements
Data custodians: Department of Land Resource Management of Northern Territory; Department of Environment and Primary Industries of Victoria; New South Wales office of Environment and Heritage; Department of Environment and Land Conservation of Western Australia, and the Department of Environment and Heritage protection of Queensland. G. Guillera-Arroita, M. McCarthy, M. Kearney, M. Bode, R. Fuller, G. Luck, G. Heard, A. Whitehead, R. Tingley, contributed discussion, ideas and data. This work was supported by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED) and the National Environment Research Program Environmental Decisions Hub (NERP ED). B.W. and J.E. were supported by ARC Future Fellowships (FT100100819, FT0991640).