Institute of Biology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China.
Ecology. 2022 Aug;103(8):e3719. doi: 10.1002/ecy.3719. Epub 2022 May 12.
Species distribution models (SDMs) have been widely applied to predict geographic ranges of species across space and time under the assumption of niche conservatism (i.e., species niches change very slowly). However, an increasing number of studies have reported evidence of rapid niche changes across space and time, which has sparked a widespread debate on whether SDMs can be transferred to new areas or time periods. Understanding how niche changes affect SDM transferability is thus crucial for the future application and improvement of SDMs. Biological invasions provide an opportunity to address this question due to the geographically independent distributions and diverse patterns of niche changes between species' native and introduced ranges. Here, we synthesized findings on 217 species from 50 studies to elucidate the effects of niche change on the spatial transferability of SDMs. When niche change was considered as a categorical classification (conserved vs. shifted niches) in tests of the niche conservatism hypothesis, SDM transferability was markedly lower for species with a shifted niche in their introduced range. When niche change was measured as numerical dynamics between native and introduced niches, SDM transferability was high for species occupying similar environmental conditions in both ranges and low for species with more environmental space remaining unoccupied in the introduced range. Surprisingly, the number of presence points used for developing SDMs turned out to have an even stronger effect on transferability. Our results thus reveal detrimental effects of both niche change and lack of presence points on SDM transferability. It is necessary to consider both niche change and data quality for improving the transferability of SDMs, so that they can better support conservation management and policy decisions.
物种分布模型（SDM）已被广泛应用于在生态位保守性假设下（即物种生态位变化非常缓慢）预测物种在空间和时间上的地理分布范围。然而，越来越多的研究报告了物种生态位在空间和时间上快速变化的证据，这引发了关于 SDM 是否可以转移到新的地区或时间段的广泛争论。因此，了解生态位变化如何影响 SDM 的可转移性对于 SDM 的未来应用和改进至关重要。生物入侵为解决这个问题提供了机会，因为物种的原生和引入范围之间的生态位变化具有地理上独立的分布和多样化的模式。在这里，我们综合了来自 50 项研究的 217 个物种的研究结果，以阐明生态位变化对 SDM 空间可转移性的影响。当生态位变化被视为分类（保守的生态位与变化的生态位）时，在对生态位保守性假设的测试中，具有引入范围中变化的生态位的物种的 SDM 可转移性明显降低。当生态位变化被测量为原生和引入生态位之间的数值动态时，在两个范围内占据相似环境条件的物种的 SDM 可转移性较高，而在引入范围内仍有更多环境空间未被占据的物种的 SDM 可转移性较低。令人惊讶的是，用于开发 SDM 的存在点数量对可转移性的影响甚至更大。因此，我们的研究结果揭示了生态位变化和缺乏存在点对 SDM 可转移性的不利影响。有必要同时考虑生态位变化和数据质量，以提高 SDM 的可转移性，从而更好地支持保护管理和政策决策。
