The contribution of vegetation and landscape configuration for predicting environmental change impacts on Iberian birds
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The contribution of vegetation and landscape configuration for predicting environmental change impacts on Iberian birds. / Triviño, Maria; Thuiller, Wilfried; Cabeza, Mar; Hickler, Thomas; Bastos Araujo, Miguel.
In: P L o S One, Vol. 6, No. 12, 2011.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - The contribution of vegetation and landscape configuration for predicting environmental change impacts on Iberian birds
AU - Triviño, Maria
AU - Thuiller, Wilfried
AU - Cabeza, Mar
AU - Hickler, Thomas
AU - Bastos Araujo, Miguel
N1 - Artikel ID: e29373
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - Although climate is known to be one of the key factors determining animal species distributions amongst others, projections of global change impacts on their distributions often rely on bioclimatic envelope models. Vegetation structure and landscape configuration are also key determinants of distributions, but they are rarely considered in such assessments. We explore the consequences of using simulated vegetation structure and composition as well as its associated landscape configuration in models projecting global change effects on Iberian bird species distributions. Both present-day and future distributions were modelled for 168 bird species using two ensemble forecasting methods: Random Forests (RF) and Boosted Regression Trees (BRT). For each species, several models were created, differing in the predictor variables used (climate, vegetation, and landscape configuration). Discrimination ability of each model in the present-day was then tested with four commonly used evaluation methods (AUC, TSS, specificity and sensitivity). The different sets of predictor variables yielded similar spatial patterns for well-modelled species, but the future projections diverged for poorly-modelled species. Models using all predictor variables were not significantly better than models fitted with climate variables alone for ca. 50% of the cases. Moreover, models fitted with climate data were always better than models fitted with landscape configuration variables, and vegetation variables were found to correlate with bird species distributions in 26-40% of the cases with BRT, and in 1-18% of the cases with RF. We conclude that improvements from including vegetation and its landscape configuration variables in comparison with climate only variables might not always be as great as expected for future projections of Iberian bird species.
AB - Although climate is known to be one of the key factors determining animal species distributions amongst others, projections of global change impacts on their distributions often rely on bioclimatic envelope models. Vegetation structure and landscape configuration are also key determinants of distributions, but they are rarely considered in such assessments. We explore the consequences of using simulated vegetation structure and composition as well as its associated landscape configuration in models projecting global change effects on Iberian bird species distributions. Both present-day and future distributions were modelled for 168 bird species using two ensemble forecasting methods: Random Forests (RF) and Boosted Regression Trees (BRT). For each species, several models were created, differing in the predictor variables used (climate, vegetation, and landscape configuration). Discrimination ability of each model in the present-day was then tested with four commonly used evaluation methods (AUC, TSS, specificity and sensitivity). The different sets of predictor variables yielded similar spatial patterns for well-modelled species, but the future projections diverged for poorly-modelled species. Models using all predictor variables were not significantly better than models fitted with climate variables alone for ca. 50% of the cases. Moreover, models fitted with climate data were always better than models fitted with landscape configuration variables, and vegetation variables were found to correlate with bird species distributions in 26-40% of the cases with BRT, and in 1-18% of the cases with RF. We conclude that improvements from including vegetation and its landscape configuration variables in comparison with climate only variables might not always be as great as expected for future projections of Iberian bird species.
KW - Animals
KW - Birds
KW - Climate
KW - Ecosystem
KW - Plants
KW - Spain
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0029373
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0029373
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 22216263
VL - 6
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
SN - 1932-6203
IS - 12
ER -
ID: 40361442