Species Distribution Modelling: Contrasting presence-only models with plot abundance data

Citation

Gomes VHF, IJff SD, Raes N, Amaral IL, Salomão RP, de Souza Coelho L, de Almeida Matos FD, Castilho CV, de Andrade Lima Filho D, López DC, Guevara JE, Magnusson WE, Phillips OL, Wittmann F & Silva TSF (2018) Species Distribution Modelling: Contrasting presence-only models with plot abundance data. Scientific Reports, 8 (1), Art. No.: 1003. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-18927-1

Abstract
Species distribution models (SDMs) are widely used in ecology and conservation. Presence-only SDMs such as MaxEnt frequently use natural history collections (NHCs) as occurrence data, given their huge numbers and accessibility. NHCs are often spatially biased which may generate inaccuracies in SDMs. Here, we test how the distribution of NHCs and MaxEnt predictions relates to a spatial abundance model, based on a large plot dataset for Amazonian tree species, using inverse distance weighting (IDW). We also propose a new pipeline to deal with inconsistencies in NHCs and to limit the area of occupancy of the species. We found a significant but weak positive relationship between the distribution of NHCs and IDW for 66% of the species. The relationship between SDMs and IDW was also significant but weakly positive for 95% of the species, and sensitivity for both analyses was high. Furthermore, the pipeline removed half of the NHCs records. Presence-only SDM applications should consider this limitation, especially for large biodiversity assessments projects, when they are automatically generated without subsequent checking. Our pipeline provides a conservative estimate of a species’ area of occupancy, within an area slightly larger than its extent of occurrence, compatible to e.g. IUCN red list assessments.

Keywords
Humanities and Social Sciences; Science; multidisciplinary

Notes
Additional co-authors: Marcelo de Jesus Veiga Carim, Maria Pires Martins, Mariana Victória Irume, Daniel Sabatier, Jean-François Molino, Olaf S. Bánki, José Renan da Silva Guimarães, Nigel C. A. Pitman, Maria Teresa Fernandez Piedade, Abel Monteagudo Mendoza, Bruno Garcia Luize, Eduardo Martins Venticinque, Evlyn Márcia Moraes de Leão Novo, Percy Núñez Vargas, Angelo Gilberto Manzatto, John Terborgh, Neidiane Farias Costa Reis, Juan Carlos Montero, Katia Regina Casula, Beatriz S. Marimon, Ben-Hur Marimon, Euridice N. Honorio Coronado, Ted R. Feldpausch, Alvaro Duque, Charles Eugene Zartman, Nicolás Castaño Arboleda, Timothy J. Killeen, Bonifacio Mostacedo, Rodolfo Vasquez, Jochen Schöngart, Rafael L. Assis, Marcelo Brilhante Medeiros, Marcelo Fragomeni Simon, Ana Andrade, William F. Laurance, José Luís Camargo, Layon O. Demarchi, Susan G. W. Laurance, Emanuelle de Sousa Farias, Henrique Eduardo Mendonça Nascimento, Juan David Cardenas Revilla, Adriano Quaresma, Flavia R. C. Costa, Ima Célia Guimarães Vieira, Bruno Barçante Ladvocat Cintra, Hernán Castellanos, Roel Brienen, Pablo R. Stevenson, Yuri Feitosa, Joost F. Duivenvoorden, Gerardo A. Aymard C., Hugo F. Mogollón, Natalia Targhetta, James A. Comiskey, Alberto Vicentini, Aline Lopes, Gabriel Damasco, Nállarett Dávila, Roosevelt García-Villacorta, Carolina Levis, Juliana Schietti, Priscila Souza, Thaise Emilio, Alfonso Alonso, David Neill, Francisco Dallmeier, Leandro Valle Ferreira, Alejandro Araujo-Murakami, Daniel Praia, Dário Dantas do Amaral, Fernanda Antunes Carvalho, Fernanda Coelho de Souza, Kenneth Feeley, Luzmila Arroyo, Marcelo Petratti Pansonato, Rogerio Gribel, Boris Villa, Juan Carlos Licona, Paul V. A. Fine, Carlos Cerón, Chris Baraloto, Eliana M. Jimenez, Juliana Stropp, Julien Engel, Marcos Silveira, Maria Cristina Peñuela Mora, Pascal Petronelli, Paul Maas, Raquel Thomas-Caesar, Terry W. Henkel, Doug Daly, Marcos Ríos Paredes, Tim R. Baker, Alfredo Fuentes, Carlos A. Peres, Jerome Chave, Jose Luis Marcelo Pena, Kyle G. Dexter, Miles R. Silman, Peter Møller Jørgensen, Toby Pennington, Anthony Di Fiore, Fernando Cornejo Valverde, Juan Fernando Phillips, Gonzalo Rivas-Torres, Patricio von Hildebrand, Tinde R. van Andel, Ademir R. Ruschel, Adriana Prieto, Agustín Rudas, Bruce Hoffman, César I. A. Vela, Edelcilio Marques Barbosa, Egleé L. Zent, George Pepe Gallardo Gonzales, Hilda Paulette Dávila Doza, Ires Paula de Andrade Miranda, Jean-Louis Guillaumet, Linder Felipe Mozombite Pinto, Luiz Carlos de Matos Bonates, Natalino Silva, Ricardo Zárate Gómez, Stanford Zent, Therany Gonzales, Vincent A. Vos, Yadvinder Malhi, Alexandre A. Oliveira, Angela Cano, Bianca Weiss Albuquerque, Corine Vriesendorp, Diego Felipe Correa, Emilio Vilanova Torre, Geertje van der Heijden, Hirma Ramirez-Angulo, José Ferreira Ramos, Kenneth R. Young, Maira Rocha, Marcelo Trindade Nascimento, Maria Natalia Umaña Medina, Milton Tirado, Ophelia Wang, Rodrigo Sierra, Armando Torres-Lezama, Casimiro Mendoza, Cid Ferreira, Cláudia Baider, Daniel Villarroel, Henrik Balslev, Italo Mesones, Ligia Estela Urrego Giraldo, Luisa Fernanda Casas, Manuel Augusto Ahuite Reategui, Reynaldo Linares-Palomino, Roderick Zagt, Sasha Cárdenas, William Farfan-Rios, Adeilza Felipe Sampaio, Daniela Pauletto, Elvis H. Valderrama Sandoval, Freddy Ramirez Arevalo, Isau Huamantupa-Chuquimaco, Karina Garcia-Cabrera, Lionel Hernandez, Luis Valenzuela Gamarra, Miguel N. Alexiades, Susamar Pansini, Walter Palacios Cuenca, William Milliken, Joana Ricardo, Gabriela Lopez-Gonzalez, Edwin Pos & Hans ter Steege

Journal
Scientific Reports: Volume 8, Issue 1