Ecological Forecasting - Approaches

Approaches

  • Palaeobiology modeling: uses fossil and phylogenetic evidence of biodiversity in the past to project the trajectory of biodiversity in the future. Simple plots can be constructed and then adjusted based on the varying quality of the fossil record.
  • Climate envelope modeling: relies on statistical correlations between existing species distributions and environmental variables to define a species' tolerance. Envelopes of tolerance are then drawn around existing ranges. By predicting future levels of factors such as temperature, rainfall, and salinity, new range boundaries are then predicted. These methods are good for examining large numbers of species, but are likely not a good means of predicting effects at fine scales.
  • Niche level modeling: is a newer method which links physiological information about a species to models of animal and plant body temperature. In contrast to “climate envelope” approaches, environmental variables are predicted at the level of the niche and are therefore much more exact. However, the approach is also usually more time consuming.

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