Seascape topography can improve accuracy of species distribution models

What is it about?

Climate change is causing species redistribution. Currently, marine species are shifting toward the Earth’s poles to avoid rapidly warming habitats. These shifts in may significantly affect biodiversity. Tools like species distribution models (SDMs) are used to predict these shifts. But SDMs have a drawback: they only consider dynamic variables like sea temperature in their calculations. Studies have shown that fishes have preferences for physical features like reefs. Their preferences for these structures affect how fishes are distributed across their habitats. Thus, SDMs may be unreliable, as they do not consider topographical features in their calculations. Using five species of fish, the authors of this paper propose that accounting for the topographical features can greatly improve predictions of species distribution.

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Photo by Hiroko Yoshii on Unsplash

Photo by Hiroko Yoshii on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The accurate estimation of climate change on species distribution is important for conservation. An important step in this process is understanding how a species interacts with its environment. This study points out that by neglecting species preferences for seascape topography, SDMs may produce inaccurate estimations of species redistribution rates. KEY TAKEAWAY: Seascape topography may be an important predictor of marine fish distribution. It can also help understand how climate change is changing the distribution of life on Earth.