Binned Relative Environmental Change Indicator (BRECI): A tool to communicate the nature of differences between environmental niche model outputs

Abstract

Niche models are now widely used in many branches of the biological sciences and are often used to contrast the distribution of favouroble environments between regionsa or under changes in environmental conditions such as anthropogenic climate change. Model performance and quality assessment are accepted as best-practice when using these models. One aspect that has received far less attention is developing methods to communicate the degree and nature of changes between model outputs (typically as raster maps). The method described in this paper, Binned Environmental Change Index (BRECI), seeks to address this shortfall in communicating model results.