Cargando…

Do traits of plant species predict the efficacy of species distribution models for finding new occurrences?

Species distribution models (SDMs) are used to test ecological theory and to direct targeted surveys for species of conservation concern. Several studies have tested for an influence of species traits on the predictive accuracy of SDMs. However, most used the same set of environmental predictors for...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: McCune, Jenny L., Rosner‐Katz, Hanna, Bennett, Joseph R., Schuster, Richard, Kharouba, Heather M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7297770/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32551077
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6254
_version_ 1783547076613767168
author McCune, Jenny L.
Rosner‐Katz, Hanna
Bennett, Joseph R.
Schuster, Richard
Kharouba, Heather M.
author_facet McCune, Jenny L.
Rosner‐Katz, Hanna
Bennett, Joseph R.
Schuster, Richard
Kharouba, Heather M.
author_sort McCune, Jenny L.
collection PubMed
description Species distribution models (SDMs) are used to test ecological theory and to direct targeted surveys for species of conservation concern. Several studies have tested for an influence of species traits on the predictive accuracy of SDMs. However, most used the same set of environmental predictors for all species and/or did not use truly independent data to test SDM accuracy. We built eight SDMs for each of 24 plant species of conservation concern, varying the environmental predictors included in each SDM version. We then measured the accuracy of each SDM using independent presence and absence data to calculate area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) and true positive rate (TPR). We used generalized linear mixed models to test for a relationship between species traits and SDM accuracy, while accounting for variation in SDM performance that might be introduced by different predictor sets. All traits affected one or both SDM accuracy measures. Species with lighter seeds, animal‐dispersed seeds, and a higher density of occurrences had higher AUC and TPR than other species, all else being equal. Long‐lived woody species had higher AUC than herbaceous species, but lower TPR. These results support the hypothesis that the strength of species–environment correlations is affected by characteristics of species or their geographic distributions. However, because each species has multiple traits, and because AUC and TPR can be affected differently, there is no straightforward way to determine a priori which species will yield useful SDMs based on their traits. Most species yielded at least one useful SDM. Therefore, it is worthwhile to build and test SDMs for the purpose of finding new populations of plant species of conservation concern, regardless of these species’ traits.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7297770
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2020
publisher John Wiley and Sons Inc.
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-72977702020-06-17 Do traits of plant species predict the efficacy of species distribution models for finding new occurrences? McCune, Jenny L. Rosner‐Katz, Hanna Bennett, Joseph R. Schuster, Richard Kharouba, Heather M. Ecol Evol Original Research Species distribution models (SDMs) are used to test ecological theory and to direct targeted surveys for species of conservation concern. Several studies have tested for an influence of species traits on the predictive accuracy of SDMs. However, most used the same set of environmental predictors for all species and/or did not use truly independent data to test SDM accuracy. We built eight SDMs for each of 24 plant species of conservation concern, varying the environmental predictors included in each SDM version. We then measured the accuracy of each SDM using independent presence and absence data to calculate area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) and true positive rate (TPR). We used generalized linear mixed models to test for a relationship between species traits and SDM accuracy, while accounting for variation in SDM performance that might be introduced by different predictor sets. All traits affected one or both SDM accuracy measures. Species with lighter seeds, animal‐dispersed seeds, and a higher density of occurrences had higher AUC and TPR than other species, all else being equal. Long‐lived woody species had higher AUC than herbaceous species, but lower TPR. These results support the hypothesis that the strength of species–environment correlations is affected by characteristics of species or their geographic distributions. However, because each species has multiple traits, and because AUC and TPR can be affected differently, there is no straightforward way to determine a priori which species will yield useful SDMs based on their traits. Most species yielded at least one useful SDM. Therefore, it is worthwhile to build and test SDMs for the purpose of finding new populations of plant species of conservation concern, regardless of these species’ traits. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2020-05-12 /pmc/articles/PMC7297770/ /pubmed/32551077 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6254 Text en © 2020 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Research
McCune, Jenny L.
Rosner‐Katz, Hanna
Bennett, Joseph R.
Schuster, Richard
Kharouba, Heather M.
Do traits of plant species predict the efficacy of species distribution models for finding new occurrences?
title Do traits of plant species predict the efficacy of species distribution models for finding new occurrences?
title_full Do traits of plant species predict the efficacy of species distribution models for finding new occurrences?
title_fullStr Do traits of plant species predict the efficacy of species distribution models for finding new occurrences?
title_full_unstemmed Do traits of plant species predict the efficacy of species distribution models for finding new occurrences?
title_short Do traits of plant species predict the efficacy of species distribution models for finding new occurrences?
title_sort do traits of plant species predict the efficacy of species distribution models for finding new occurrences?
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7297770/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32551077
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6254
work_keys_str_mv AT mccunejennyl dotraitsofplantspeciespredicttheefficacyofspeciesdistributionmodelsforfindingnewoccurrences
AT rosnerkatzhanna dotraitsofplantspeciespredicttheefficacyofspeciesdistributionmodelsforfindingnewoccurrences
AT bennettjosephr dotraitsofplantspeciespredicttheefficacyofspeciesdistributionmodelsforfindingnewoccurrences
AT schusterrichard dotraitsofplantspeciespredicttheefficacyofspeciesdistributionmodelsforfindingnewoccurrences
AT kharoubaheatherm dotraitsofplantspeciespredicttheefficacyofspeciesdistributionmodelsforfindingnewoccurrences