2010/05/11 by Lauren B. Buckley, Mark C. Urban, Michael J. Angilletta +3 · 3 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Environmental Science · #Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies #Plant and animal studies #Species Distribution and Climate Change
paper · doi:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2010.01479.x
openalex publication_date 2010/05/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22
Two major approaches address the need to predict species distributions in response to environmental changes. Correlative models estimate parameters phenomenologically by relating current distributions to environmental conditions. By contrast, mechanistic models incorporate explicit relationships between environmental conditions and organismal performance, estimated independently of current distributions. Mechanistic approaches include models that translate environmental conditions into biologically relevant metrics (e.g. potential duration of activity), models that capture environmental sensitivities of survivorship and fecundity, and models that use energetics to link environmental conditions and demography. We compared how two correlative and three mechanistic models predicted the ranges of two species: a skipper butterfly (Atalopedes campestris) and a fence lizard (Sceloporus undulatus). Correlative and mechanistic models performed similarly in predicting current distributions, but mechanistic models predicted larger range shifts in response to climate change. Although mechanistic models theoretically should provide more accurate distribution predictions, there is much potential for improving their flexibility and performance.