Ecol Appl. 2014 Jan;24(1):204-16. doi: 10.1890/13-0336.1.
Niche theory is a well-established concept integrating a diverse array of environmental variables and multispecies interactions used to describe species geographic distribution. It is now customary to employ species distribution models (SDMs) that use environmental variables in conjunction with species location information to characterize species' niches and map their geographic ranges. The challenge remains, however, to account for the biotic interactions of species with other community members on which they depend. We show here how to connect species spatial distribution and their dependence with other species by modeling spatially explicit predator-prey interactions, which we call a trophic interaction distribution model (TIDM). To develop the principles, we capitalized on data from Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) reintroduced into Colorado. Spatial location information for lynx obtained from telemetry was used in conjunction with environmental data to construct an SDM. The spatial locations of lynx-snowshoe hare encounters obtained from snow-tracking in conjunction with environmental data were used to construct a TIDM. The environmental conditions associated with lynx locations and lynx-hare encounters identified through both SDM and TIDM revealed an initial transient phase in habitat use that settled into a steady state. Nevertheless, despite the potential for the SDM to broadly encompass all lynx hunting and nonhunting spatial locations, the spatial extents of the SDM and TIDM differed; about 40% of important lynx-snowshoe hare locations identified in the TIDM were not identified in the lynx-only SDM. Our results encourage greater effort to quantify spatial locations of trophic interactions among species in a community and the associated environmental conditions when attempting to construct models aimed at projecting current and future species geographic distributions.
生态位理论是一个成熟的概念，它整合了多种环境变量和多物种相互作用，用于描述物种的地理分布。现在通常使用物种分布模型（SDM），该模型结合环境变量和物种位置信息来描述物种的生态位，并绘制其地理范围。然而，仍然存在一个挑战，即需要考虑物种与其所依赖的其他群落成员之间的生物相互作用。我们在这里展示了如何通过模拟空间显式的捕食者-猎物相互作用来连接物种的空间分布及其与其他物种的依赖关系，我们称之为营养相互作用分布模型（TIDM）。为了开发原理，我们利用了重新引入科罗拉多州的加拿大猞猁（Lynx canadensis）的数据。利用遥测获得的猞猁的空间位置信息，并结合环境数据来构建 SDM。利用雪地追踪获得的猞猁-雪兔相遇的空间位置，并结合环境数据来构建 TIDM。通过 SDM 和 TIDM 确定的与猞猁位置和猞猁-野兔相遇相关的环境条件表明，栖息地利用经历了一个初始的瞬态阶段，然后稳定下来。尽管 SDM 有可能广泛涵盖所有猞猁狩猎和非狩猎的空间位置，但 SDM 和 TIDM 的空间范围不同；TIDM 中确定的大约 40%的重要猞猁-雪兔位置在仅猞猁 SDM 中没有确定。我们的结果鼓励在尝试构建旨在预测当前和未来物种地理分布的模型时，更多地努力量化群落中物种之间的营养相互作用的空间位置及其相关环境条件。
