Ecological niche models as a tool for estimating the distribution of plant communities

Abstract

Ecological niche models allow inferences about the distribution of species and communities, facilitating the identification of priority areas for conservation, mainly in threatened environments such as the seasonally dry tropical forest (SDTF). The objectives of this work were to delimit SDTF using mostly restricted and endemic vascular plant species, in addition to evaluating and comparing the performance of the model with 4 additional proposals of the distribution of SDTF in Michoacan. To delimit the distribution of SDTF in Michoacan, 76 individual ecological niche models were constructed. Then, the individual models were assembled to obtain the biome distribution model, and the resulting map was compared with the other SDTF proposals for Michoacan. The model best supported by the observed data and balanced in the percentage of omission and commission errors was our model, and the model most like ours in terms of the predicted area, was the one proposed by INEGI (2003). The use of widely distributed species in the definition of communities results in models with greater overestimation. It is important to adapt the available information and knowledge about the object of study, to properly integrate them into the different algorithms that allow us to obtain an approximation of what happens with the species or communities.