IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0040212.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Climatic Associations of British Species Distributions Show Good Transferability in Time but Low Predictive Accuracy for Range Change

Author

Listed:
  • Giovanni Rapacciuolo
  • David B Roy
  • Simon Gillings
  • Richard Fox
  • Kevin Walker
  • Andy Purvis

Abstract

Conservation planners often wish to predict how species distributions will change in response to environmental changes. Species distribution models (SDMs) are the primary tool for making such predictions. Many methods are widely used; however, they all make simplifying assumptions, and predictions can therefore be subject to high uncertainty. With global change well underway, field records of observed range shifts are increasingly being used for testing SDM transferability. We used an unprecedented distribution dataset documenting recent range changes of British vascular plants, birds, and butterflies to test whether correlative SDMs based on climate change provide useful approximations of potential distribution shifts. We modelled past species distributions from climate using nine single techniques and a consensus approach, and projected the geographical extent of these models to a more recent time period based on climate change; we then compared model predictions with recent observed distributions in order to estimate the temporal transferability and prediction accuracy of our models. We also evaluated the relative effect of methodological and taxonomic variation on the performance of SDMs. Models showed good transferability in time when assessed using widespread metrics of accuracy. However, models had low accuracy to predict where occupancy status changed between time periods, especially for declining species. Model performance varied greatly among species within major taxa, but there was also considerable variation among modelling frameworks. Past climatic associations of British species distributions retain a high explanatory power when transferred to recent time – due to their accuracy to predict large areas retained by species – but fail to capture relevant predictors of change. We strongly emphasize the need for caution when using SDMs to predict shifts in species distributions: high explanatory power on temporally-independent records – as assessed using widespread metrics – need not indicate a model’s ability to predict the future.

Suggested Citation

  • Giovanni Rapacciuolo & David B Roy & Simon Gillings & Richard Fox & Kevin Walker & Andy Purvis, 2012. "Climatic Associations of British Species Distributions Show Good Transferability in Time but Low Predictive Accuracy for Range Change," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(7), pages 1-11, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0040212
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0040212
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0040212
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0040212&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0040212?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Camille Parmesan & Gary Yohe, 2003. "A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural systems," Nature, Nature, vol. 421(6918), pages 37-42, January.
    2. Terry L. Root & Jeff T. Price & Kimberly R. Hall & Stephen H. Schneider & Cynthia Rosenzweig & J. Alan Pounds, 2003. "Fingerprints of global warming on wild animals and plants," Nature, Nature, vol. 421(6918), pages 57-60, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Crimmins, Shawn M. & Dobrowski, Solomon Z. & Mynsberge, Alison R., 2013. "Evaluating ensemble forecasts of plant species distributions under climate change," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 266(C), pages 126-130.
    2. Beaumont, Linda J. & Graham, Erin & Duursma, Daisy Englert & Wilson, Peter D. & Cabrelli, Abigail & Baumgartner, John B. & Hallgren, Willow & Esperón-Rodríguez, Manuel & Nipperess, David A. & Warren, , 2016. "Which species distribution models are more (or less) likely to project broad-scale, climate-induced shifts in species ranges?," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 342(C), pages 135-146.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Richard Tol, 2011. "Regulating knowledge monopolies: the case of the IPCC," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 108(4), pages 827-839, October.
    2. Wesley R. Brooks & Stephen C. Newbold, 2013. "Ecosystem damages in integrated assessment models of climate change," NCEE Working Paper Series 201302, National Center for Environmental Economics, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, revised Mar 2013.
    3. Fabina, Nicholas S. & Abbott, Karen C. & Gilman, R.Tucker, 2010. "Sensitivity of plant–pollinator–herbivore communities to changes in phenology," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 221(3), pages 453-458.
    4. Ye, Qing & Yang, Xiaoguang & Dai, Shuwei & Chen, Guangsheng & Li, Yong & Zhang, Caixia, 2015. "Effects of climate change on suitable rice cropping areas, cropping systems and crop water requirements in southern China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 35-44.
    5. Brandt, Laura A. & Benscoter, Allison M. & Harvey, Rebecca & Speroterra, Carolina & Bucklin, David & Romañach, Stephanie S. & Watling, James I. & Mazzotti, Frank J., 2017. "Comparison of climate envelope models developed using expert-selected variables versus statistical selection," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 345(C), pages 10-20.
    6. Annie Paradis & Joe Elkinton & Katharine Hayhoe & John Buonaccorsi, 2008. "Role of winter temperature and climate change on the survival and future range expansion of the hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae) in eastern North America," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 13(5), pages 541-554, June.
    7. Robert J. Knell & Stephen J. Thackeray, 2016. "Voltinism and resilience to climate-induced phenological mismatch," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 137(3), pages 525-539, August.
    8. Rowell, Jonathan T., 2009. "The limitation of species range: A consequence of searching along resource gradients," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 216-227.
    9. Lee Hannah & Marc Steele & Emily Fung & Pablo Imbach & Lorriane Flint & Alan Flint, 2017. "Climate change influences on pollinator, forest, and farm interactions across a climate gradient," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 141(1), pages 63-75, March.
    10. Zdeněk Laštůvka, 2009. "Climate change and its possible influence on the occurrence and importance of insect pests," Plant Protection Science, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 45(SpecialIs), pages 53-62.
    11. Yingjie Niu & Zhentao Zou, 2024. "Robust Abatement Policy with Uncertainty About Environmental Disasters," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 87(4), pages 933-965, April.
    12. Singer, Alexander & Johst, Karin & Banitz, Thomas & Fowler, Mike S. & Groeneveld, Jürgen & Gutiérrez, Alvaro G. & Hartig, Florian & Krug, Rainer M. & Liess, Matthias & Matlack, Glenn & Meyer, Katrin M, 2016. "Community dynamics under environmental change: How can next generation mechanistic models improve projections of species distributions?," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 326(C), pages 63-74.
    13. Disha Sachan & Pankaj Kumar & Md. Saquib Saharwardi, 2022. "Contemporary climate change velocity for near-surface temperatures over India," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 173(3), pages 1-19, August.
    14. Ferenc L. Toth & Eva Hizsnyik, 2005. "Managing The Inconceivable: Participatory Assessments Of Impacts And Responses To Extreme Climate Change," Working Papers FNU-74, Research unit Sustainability and Global Change, Hamburg University, revised May 2005.
    15. Víctor Rincón & Javier Velázquez & Derya Gülçin & Aida López-Sánchez & Carlos Jiménez & Ali Uğur Özcan & Juan Carlos López-Almansa & Tomás Santamaría & Daniel Sánchez-Mata & Kerim Çiçek, 2023. "Mapping Priority Areas for Connectivity of Yellow-Winged Darter ( Sympetrum flaveolum , Linnaeus 1758) under Climate Change," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-39, January.
    16. Elizabeth C Elliott & Stephen J Cornell, 2013. "Are Anomalous Invasion Speeds Robust to Demographic Stochasticity?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(7), pages 1-8, July.
    17. Lucie Kuczynski & Mathieu Chevalier & Pascal Laffaille & Marion Legrand & Gaël Grenouillet, 2017. "Indirect effect of temperature on fish population abundances through phenological changes," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(4), pages 1-13, April.
    18. Sang-Don Lee, 2017. "Global Warming Leading to Phenological Responses in the Process of Urbanization, South Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-27, November.
    19. Jianguo Wu, 2016. "Detection and attribution of the effects of climate change on bat distributions over the last 50 years," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 134(4), pages 681-696, February.
    20. Marco Archetti & Andrew D Richardson & John O'Keefe & Nicolas Delpierre, 2013. "Predicting Climate Change Impacts on the Amount and Duration of Autumn Colors in a New England Forest," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(3), pages 1-8, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0040212. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.