Abstract
BackgroundThere is ample evidence that biotic factors, such as biotic interactions and dispersal capacity, can affect species distributions and influence species’ responses to climate change. However, little is known about how these factors affect predictions from species distribution models (SDMs) with respect to spatial grain and extent of the models.ObjectivesUnderstanding how spatial scale influences the effects of biological processes in SDMs is important because SDMs are one of the primary tools used by conservation biologists to assess biodiversity impacts of climate change.Data sources and study eligibility criteriaWe systematically reviewed SDM studies published from 2003–2015 using ISI Web of Science searches to: (1) determine the current state and key knowledge gaps of SDMs that incorporate biotic interactions and dispersal; and (2) understand how choice of spatial scale may alter the influence of biological processes on SDM predictions.Synthesis methods and limitationsWe used linear mixed effects models to examine how predictions from SDMs changed in response to the effects of spatial scale, dispersal, and biotic interactions.ResultsThere were important biases in studies including an emphasis on terrestrial ecosystems in northern latitudes and little representation of aquatic ecosystems. Our results suggest that neither spatial extent nor grain influence projected climate-induced changes in species ranges when SDMs include dispersal or biotic interactions.ConclusionsWe identified several knowledge gaps and suggest that SDM studies forecasting the effects of climate change should: 1) address broader ranges of taxa and locations; and 1) report the grain size, extent, and results with and without biological complexity. The spatial scale of analysis in SDMs did not affect estimates of projected range shifts with dispersal and biotic interactions. However, the lack of reporting on results with and without biological complexity precluded many studies from our analysis.
Highlights
Climate change already has and will continue to alter environmental conditions in increasingly severe ways [1,2]
Understanding how spatial scale influences the effects of biological processes in species distribution models (SDMs) is important because SDMs are one of the primary tools used by conservation biologists to assess biodiversity impacts of climate change
We systematically reviewed SDM studies published from 2003–2015 using ISI Web of Science searches to: (1) determine the current state and key knowledge gaps of SDMs that incorporate biotic interactions and dispersal; and (2) understand how choice of spatial scale may alter the influence of biological processes on SDM predictions
Summary
Climate change already has and will continue to alter environmental conditions in increasingly severe ways [1,2]. The most widely used SDM approaches are problematic in that they rely largely on examining correlative relationships between abiotic drivers and species occurrence data to predict future changes in distributions while ignoring important aspects of species’ biology [6,7,8,9,10]. There is ample evidence that biotic factors, such as biotic interactions and dispersal capacity, can affect species distributions and influence species’ responses to climate change. Little is known about how these factors affect predictions from species distribution models (SDMs) with respect to spatial grain and extent of the models
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