Climate Change and Biodiversity: Some Considerations in Forecasting Shifts in Species' Potential Distributions

Abstract

Global climate change and its broad spectrum of effects on human and natural systems has become a central research topic in recent years; biodiversity informatics tools-particularly ecological niche modeling (ENM)-have been used extensively to anticipate potential effects on geographic distributions of species. Misuse of these tools, however, is counterproductive, as biased conclusions might be reached. In this paper, I discuss some issues related to niche theory, geographic distributions, data quality, and algorithms, all of which are relevant when using ENM in climate change projections for biodiversity. This assortment of opinions and ideas is presented in the hope that ENM applications to climate change questions can be made more realistic and more predictive.

Modelado de la distribución potencial de especies de Pinaceae bajo escenarios de cambio climático en Michoacán

“…Since then, huge quantities of resources have been invested in the understanding of the phenomenon and its possible consequences on species distribution (Martínez-Meyer, 2005). Paleoecological evidence indicates that the distribution area of some species has contracted or expanded on various occasions since the last ice age; therefore, it is assumed that in the future there could be a similar phenomenon.…”

“…Desde entonces se han invertido cantidades enormes de recursos en el entendimiento del fenómeno y sus posibles consecuencias en la distribución de especies (Martínez-Meyer, 2005). Evidencias paleoecológicas indican que el área de distribución de algunas especies se ha contraído o expandido en varias ocasiones desde la última era glacial; por tanto, se asume que en el futuro puede existir un fenómeno parecido.…”

A synecological framework for systematic conservation planning

“…Having said this, it is also known that errors in the predictor variables and/or, biases in observed species data and model inabilities to account for true distributions can produce a systematic bias (Flather et al 1997;Fielding 2002). For example, most times data on the distribution of a species is biased to the center (either geographic or environmental) of its distribution (see Martínez-Meyer 2005). In addition, in some regions some parts of the geographic and environmental spaces have been repeatedly sampled through time, whereas others remained poorly known, being regional conditions underrepresented in the data at hand Recent work on the theoretical assumptions under environmental niche modelling (e.g., Soberón and Peterson 2005;Araújo and Guisan 2006;Austin 2006) and the implementation of such theoretical advances in modelling techniques will result in an improvement of the accuracy of predictions in the future.…”

“…We hypothesize that the areas where errors could potentially accumulate would coincide with: i) range margins, where species usually suffer more stress (Brown 1984;see Loiselle et al 2003;Araújo et al 2005a); or ii) areas where community-level and/or historic processes, hard to model even for a single species, have played an important role in modifying species distributions (Woodward and Beerling 1997;Davis et al 1998a,b;Pearson and Dawson 2003;see also Hampe 2004;Iverson et al 2004;Skov and Svenning 2004;Thomas et al 2004;Peterson 2005 andMartínez-Meyer 2005). Therefore, most times species distributions are not in equilibrium with current climate conditions (see, e.g., Araújo and Pearson 2005), one of the basic assumptions of ecological niche modelling.…”

Using ecological niche modelsto plan conservation in a changing environment: A case for the plant Chasmanthera dependens Hochst (Menispermaceae) in West Africa

“…As these models have proven to identify potential distribution areas of species it is important to note that geographical distribution of species are influenced by biological interactions and historical factors which are not taken in to account in the modeling algorithms (IlloldiRangel and Escalante, 2008). Hence, ENMs are ecological niche modeling interpreted as the geographical representation of environmental conditions required by the species (Martínez-Meyer, 2005).…”