Modeling Species’ Potential Distribution

Abstract

Species distribution modeling (SDMs) may be one of the most exciting and hottest topics in current ecological studies. SDMs have been widely employed for ecologists to evaluate how climate change may drive species to go extinction under future climate conditions. SDMs are also used to monitor and delineate the cryptic and newly described species that have little information about their biology and distribution. Overall, SDMs are powerful tools for conducting biodiversity analyses. In this chapter, I outlined some of the most commonly used algorithms for conducting SDMs. A practical example is also provided.

Keywords: Black box issue, climate change, ecological niche analysis, ensemble species distribution modeling, fundamental niches, geographical information system, global change, land use, macroecology, model training and test, niche conservatism hypothesis, realized niches, species distribution, species extinction, statistical algorithms, statistical ecology.