Predicting to new environments tools for visualizing model behaviour and impacts on mapped distributions
- Data limitations can lead to unrealistic fits of predictive species distribution models (SDMs) and spurious extrapolation to novel environments. Here, we want to draw attention to novel combinations of environmental predictors that are within the sampled range of individual predictors but are nevertheless outside the sample space. These tend to be overlooked when visualizing model behaviour. They may be a cause of differing model transferability and environmental change predictions between methods, a problem described in some studies but generally not well understood. We here use a simple simulated data example to illustrate the problem and provide new and complementary visualization techniques to explore model behaviour and predictions to novel environments. We then apply these in a more complex real-world example. Our results underscore the necessity of scrutinizing model fits, ecological theory and environmental novelty.
Author details: | Damaris ZurellORCiDGND, Jane Elith, Boris Schröder-EsselbachORCiDGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1472-4642.2012.00887.x |
ISSN: | 1366-9516 |
Title of parent work (English): | Diversity & distributions : a journal of biological invasions and biodiversity |
Publisher: | Wiley-Blackwell |
Place of publishing: | Hoboken |
Publication type: | Other |
Language: | English |
Year of first publication: | 2012 |
Publication year: | 2012 |
Release date: | 2017/03/26 |
Tag: | Environmental niche; extrapolation; inflated response curves; novel environment; sampling space; species distribution models |
Volume: | 18 |
Issue: | 6 |
Number of pages: | 7 |
First page: | 628 |
Last Page: | 634 |
Organizational units: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Biochemie und Biologie |
Peer review: | Referiert |