Species distribution models applied to plant species selection in forest restoration: are model predictions comparable to expert opinion?

Gastón, Aitor; García-Viñas, Juan I.; Bravo-Fernández, Alfredo J.; López-Leiva, César; Oliet, Juan A.; Roig, Sònia; Serrada, R.

doi:10.1007/s11056-014-9427-7

Cited by 39 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Our results also confirm the variation that can occur among experts when asked the same question despite their expertise ostensibly covering the same knowledge domain; in this instance the habitat preferences of the British vascular plant flora (e.g. Gastón et al, ; Murray et al, ; Appendix ). Having more experts assess the models becomes an obvious requirement when a small number fail to reach consensus.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 81%

Assessment of a large number of empirical plant species niche models by elicitation of knowledge from two national experts

Smart

Jarvis

Mizunuma

et al. 2019

Ecology and Evolution

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Quantitative models play an increasing role in exploring the impact of global change on biodiversity. To win credibility and trust, they need validating. We show how expert knowledge can be used to assess a large number of empirical species niche models constructed for the British vascular plant and bryophyte flora. Key outcomes were (a) scored assessments of each modeled species and niche axis combination, (b) guidance on models needing further development, (c) exploration of the trade‐off between presenting more complex model summaries, which could lead to more thorough validation, versus the longer time these take to evaluate, (d) quantification of the internal consistency of expert opinion based on comparison of assessment scores made on a random subset of models evaluated by both experts. Overall, the experts assessed 39% of species and niche axis combinations to be “poor” and 61% to show a degree of reliability split between “moderate” (30%), “good” (25%), and “excellent” (6%). The two experts agreed in only 43% of cases, reaching greater consensus about poorer models and disagreeing most about models rated as better by either expert. This low agreement rate suggests that a greater number of experts is required to produce reliable assessments and to more fully understand the reasons underlying lack of consensus. While area under curve (AUC) statistics showed generally very good ability of the models to predict random hold‐out samples of the data, there was no correspondence between these and the scores given by the experts and no apparent correlation between AUC and species prevalence. Crowd‐sourcing further assessments by allowing web‐based access to model fits is an obvious next step. To this end, we developed an online application for inspecting and evaluating the fit of each niche surface to its training data.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 81%

Assessment of a large number of empirical plant species niche models by elicitation of knowledge from two national experts

Smart

Jarvis

Mizunuma

et al. 2019

Ecology and Evolution

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“…Diante deste contexto, a modelagem do nicho ecológico de espécies tem-se destacado como uma das principais ferramentas para a investigação da relação entre as espécies e o clima, permitindo análises que possam contribuir para a proteção e a conservação da biodiversidade, para a escolha das espécies vizando a restauração de ecossistemas (Gastón et al 2014;López-Tirado & Hidalgo 2016) e no entendimento dos padrões de distribuição geográfica em uma análise regional (Siqueira & Durigan 2007;Rodrigues et al 2015).…”

Section: Veja Materials Suplementar Emunclassified

Impacto de mudanças climáticas sobre a distribuição geográfica potencial de Ilex paraguariensis

2018

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Resumo Foi modelado o nicho climático e avaliamos o impacto de mudanças climáticas sobre a distribuição geográfica potencial de Ilex paraguariensis. Esta espécie apresenta elevada importância sociocultural, econômica e ecológica na porção sul da Floresta Atlântica. As áreas de ocorrência foram definidas por meio das coordenadas geográficas das localidades onde a espécie foi registrada. Foram consideradas oito variáveis climáticas obtidas a partir da base de dados do WorldClim. A modelagem do nicho climático da espécie foi realizada por meio de dez algoritmos. A predição da área de adequabilidade climática, contemporânea e futura (2070) da espécie, foi realizada a partir do consenso dos ajustes com boa performance (TSS > 0,40). Para predições futuras, foram considerados cenários de mudanças climáticas otimista (RCP4.5) e pessimista (RCP8.5), com base no quinto relatório do IPCC. Verificou-se que a espécie ocorre, predominantemente, no domínio Atlântico. Enquanto que no cenário otimista, I. paraguariensis apresentou redução de 65,8% de sua área de adequabilidade climática, no cenário mais pessimista, a redução foi de 82,1%, sendo as perdas concentradas nas áreas periféricas das projeções de ocorrência.

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“…Species distribution modeling (SDM; Franklin, ; Guisan, Thuiller, & Zimmermann, ; Peterson et al., ) is an effective tool widely applied in numerous disciplines (Elith & Leathwick, ; Mateo, Felicísimo, & Muñoz, ). The resulting models can be used to support conservation planning decisions (Guisan et al., ; Tulloch et al., ), for instance by offering spatial knowledge on the potential suitability of plant species being considered for vegetation restoration programs (Gastón et al., ). There are numerous examples of SDMs applied to support management of endangered species (Guisan et al., ; Le Lay, Engler, Franc, & Guisan, ; Sousa‐Silva, Alves, Honrado, & Lomba, ; Wang et al., ), assessment of climate change effects on biodiversity (Patiño et al., ), biodiversity conservation plans (Ramirez‐Villegas et al., ), or reserve design (Mateo, de la Estrella, Felicísimo, Muñoz, & Guisan, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There are numerous examples of SDMs applied to support management of endangered species (Guisan et al., ; Le Lay, Engler, Franc, & Guisan, ; Sousa‐Silva, Alves, Honrado, & Lomba, ; Wang et al., ), assessment of climate change effects on biodiversity (Patiño et al., ), biodiversity conservation plans (Ramirez‐Villegas et al., ), or reserve design (Mateo, de la Estrella, Felicísimo, Muñoz, & Guisan, ). However, despite the high potential applicability of SDMs for plant restoration (Gastón et al., ), they have rarely been applied for this purpose (but see; Burnside, Smith, & Waite, ; Gastón et al., ; van Loon et al., ). This lack of restoration use might be caused by limitations in conceptual and methodological issues arising when applying SDMs to conservation programs at the landscape scale, such as the need to integrate hierarchical levels (Gastón & García‐Viñas, ), or the choice of an appropriate sampling strategy to sample the data at the landscape scale (Mateo, Gastón, Aroca‐Fernández García‐Viñas & Saura, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hierarchical species distribution models in support of vegetation conservation at the landscape scale

Mateo

Gastón

Aroca‐Fernández

et al. 2019

J Vegetation Science

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Questions: Species distribution models (SDMs) based on habitat suitability and niche quantification are powerful tools in vegetation science. Recent findings suggest that they could be applied at the landscape scale as vegetation conservation tools, but that some environmental dimensions (e.g., climate) need to be considered at larger scales. What is the importance of applying hierarchical SDMs combining information from different scales to ensure consistent local vegetation management decisions?Study Site: Mainland Spain and Biosphere Reserve of Sierra del Rincón (central Spain). Methods:We generated SDMs for five tree species at the regional scale (mainland Spain) using climatic variables plus presence/absence data from the Spanish National Forest Inventory; and at the landscape scale (Sierra del Rincón Biosphere Reserve) using local environmental variables plus locally gathered vegetation presence/absence data. Predictions of both regional and landscape models were combined at the landscape scale following two different hierarchical approaches. The four resulting predictions were compared with correlation coefficients and independently evaluated with the AUC statistic and data collected in the study area.Results: The regional SDMs depict suitable climatic conditions for the tree species, while the landscape SDMs capture important local ecological drivers that influence habitat suitability at finer scales. Expectedly, the regional SDMs predict larger suitable areas than the landscape SDMs. The predictions from the hierarchical approaches are reliable and provide on average better results than non-hierarchical ones. Conclusions: SDMs can be valuable tools for local plant conservation programs.We present examples of the applicability of a hierarchical modeling approach and conceptual and methodological solutions related to the use of these tools in local vegetation conservation programs. For example, we show that landscape SDMs could be used to determine the current distribution of endangered plant species, while a hierarchical approach would be better suited to define areas to re-vegetate within a local restoration program. K E Y W O R D S conservation plan, ecological drivers, ensemble modeling, environmental niche, forest management, habitat suitability, hierarchical species distribution models, plants, spatial distribution, species distribution modeling, vegetation restoration | Additional supporting information may be found online in the Supporting Information section at the end of the article.Appendix S1 Downscaling of climatic variables.Appendix S2 Landscape, regional, hierarchical1 and hierarchical2SDMs derived for the five species considered in this study. How to cite this article:Mateo RG, Gastón A, Aroca-Fernández MJ, et al. Hierarchical species distribution models in support of vegetation conservation at the landscape scale. J

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Species distribution models applied to plant species selection in forest restoration: are model predictions comparable to expert opinion?

Cited by 39 publications

References 25 publications

Assessment of a large number of empirical plant species niche models by elicitation of knowledge from two national experts

Assessment of a large number of empirical plant species niche models by elicitation of knowledge from two national experts

Impacto de mudanças climáticas sobre a distribuição geográfica potencial de Ilex paraguariensis

Hierarchical species distribution models in support of vegetation conservation at the landscape scale

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