Incorporating movement in species distribution models

Abstract

Movement in the context of species distribution models (SDMs) generally refers to a species’ ability to access suitable habitat. Movement ability can be determined by some combination of dispersal constraints or migration rates, landscape factors such as patch configuration, disturbance, and barriers, and demographic factors related to age at maturity, mortality, and fecundity. Including movement ability can result in more precise projections that help to distinguish suitable habitat that is or can be potentially occupied, from suitable habitat that is inaccessible. While most SDM studies have ignored movement or conceptualized it in overly simplistic ways (e.g. no dispersal versus unlimited dispersal), it is increasingly important to incorporate realistic information on movement ability, particularly for studies that aim to project future distributions such as climate change forecasting and invasive species applications. This progress report addresses the increasingly complex ways in which movement has been incorporated in SDM and outlines directions for further study.

Occupancy and abundance of predator and prey: implications of the fire‐cheatgrass cycle in sagebrush ecosystems

“…For example, the effect of dispersal potential on ground squirrel occupancy was much stronger than on abundance, which provides support for accessibility acting at broader extents in animals as well as plants (e.g., Boulangeat et al. , Miller and Holloway ). However, the effect of soil texture was important across extents providing support for multiscale effects of abiotic factors.…”

“…The effect size of explanatory variables differed between ground squirrel occupancy and abundance results, emphasizing how the scale of biotic and abiotic processes influence occupancy and abundance. For example, the effect of dispersal potential on ground squirrel occupancy was much stronger than on abundance, which provides support for accessibility acting at broader extents in animals as well as plants (e.g., Boulangeat et al 2012, Miller andHolloway 2015). However, the effect of soil texture was important across extents providing support for multiscale effects of abiotic factors.…”

“…We also expected ground squirrel abundance to be positively associated with accessibility, but to a lesser degree than occupancy because abundance is driven by more local‐level processes such as bottom‐up mechanisms. Incorporating accessibility when modeling occupancy or abundance of species across landscapes has recently been shown to be important, and provides a more realistic assessment of the relative effects of abiotic and biotic factors (Miller and Holloway ).…”

All dispersal functions are wrong, but many are useful: A response to Cousens et al.

“…These are of use to researchers who may either not have the necessary data to model their system or may not be interested in case‐specific kernels. These general and better validated kernel functions would be useful, for example, in species distribution modelling (Miller & Holloway, ), analysing spatial networks (Marleau, Guichard, & Loreau, ) and predicting responses to climate change (Santini et al., ).…”

Uses of Innovative Modeling Tools within the Implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive

“…For example, to obtain meaningful risk maps of the cumulative impact of invasive NIS it is required to consider the complete set of species targeted but, only recently, developments on multispecies distribution models are overcoming limitations of modeling for a large number of species (e.g., Fitzpatrick et al, 2011). Other relevant modeling developments aim at incorporating species co-occurrence data into a species distribution model (e.g., Pollock et al, 2014) or by integrating traits, namely dispersal strategies, into the modeling (e.g., Miller and Holloway, 2015).…”