Scale effects on the performance of niche-based models of freshwater fish distributions
- Niche-based species distribution models (SDMs) have become an essential tool in conservation and restoration planning. Given the current threats to freshwater biodiversity, it is of fundamental importance to address scale effects on the performance of niche-based SDMs of freshwater species’ distributions. The scale effects are addressed here in the context of hierarchical catchment ordering, considered as counterpart to coarsening grain-size by increasing grid-cell size. We combine fish occurrence data from the Danube River Basin, the hierarchical catchment ordering and multiple environmental factors representing topographic, climatic and anthropogenic effects to model fish occurrence probability across multiple scales. We focus on 1st to 5th order catchments. The spatial scale (hierarchical catchment order) only marginally influences the mean performance of SDMs, however the uncertainty of the estimates increases with scale. Key predictors and their relative importance are scale and species dependent. Our findings have usefulNiche-based species distribution models (SDMs) have become an essential tool in conservation and restoration planning. Given the current threats to freshwater biodiversity, it is of fundamental importance to address scale effects on the performance of niche-based SDMs of freshwater species’ distributions. The scale effects are addressed here in the context of hierarchical catchment ordering, considered as counterpart to coarsening grain-size by increasing grid-cell size. We combine fish occurrence data from the Danube River Basin, the hierarchical catchment ordering and multiple environmental factors representing topographic, climatic and anthropogenic effects to model fish occurrence probability across multiple scales. We focus on 1st to 5th order catchments. The spatial scale (hierarchical catchment order) only marginally influences the mean performance of SDMs, however the uncertainty of the estimates increases with scale. Key predictors and their relative importance are scale and species dependent. Our findings have useful implications for choosing proper species dependent spatial scales for river rehabilitation measures, and for conservation planning in areas where fine grain species data are unavailable.…
Author details: | Oskar KärcherORCiDGND, Karin FrankORCiDGND, Ariane WalzORCiDGND, Danijela MarkovicORCiDGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2019.05.006 |
ISSN: | 0304-3800 |
ISSN: | 1872-7026 |
Title of parent work (English): | Ecological modelling : international journal on ecological modelling and engineering and systems ecolog |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Place of publishing: | Amsterdam |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Year of first publication: | 2019 |
Publication year: | 2019 |
Release date: | 2020/12/14 |
Tag: | Catchment order; Conservation planning; Danube; Generalized additive models; Species distribution modelling |
Volume: | 405 |
Number of pages: | 10 |
First page: | 33 |
Last Page: | 42 |
Funding institution: | DFGGerman Research Foundation (DFG) [MA 6593/2-1]; Horizon 2020 ECOPOTENTIAL project [641762] |
Organizational units: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Geowissenschaften |
DDC classification: | 5 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik / 55 Geowissenschaften, Geologie / 550 Geowissenschaften |
Peer review: | Referiert |
Publishing method: | Open Access / Hybrid Open-Access |