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PhD Seminar: Modelling species' distributions and ecological niches

A. Márcia Barbosa

The concept of ecological niche has evolved and ramified through time. This seminar will go through the different types of ecological niche, including the fundamental, the potential, the realized and the occupied niche. We will see the reasons for the differences between these niches, such as competition and other biotic interactions, geographical barriers, and species’ dispersal capacity. We will also talk about related concepts such as the source-sink theory. We will then present an overview of various modelling methods that allow inferring the different types of ecological niches from species’ distributions. We discuss the limitations of these models and their practical applications, such as predicting species' potential distributions on different scales, times and geographical areas.

Useful references:

Pulliam HR (2000) On the relationship between niche and distribution. Ecology Letters 3: 349-361

Soberón J & Peterson AT (2005) Interpretation of models of fundamental ecological niches and species’ distributional areas. Biodiversity Informatics 2: 1-10

Wintle BA, Elith J & Potts JM (2005) Fauna habitat modelling and mapping: a review and case study in the Lower Hunter Central Coast region of NSW. Austral Ecology 30: 719–738

Sillero N, Barbosa AM, Martínez-Freiría F & Real R (2010) Los modelos de nicho ecológico en la herpetología ibérica: pasado, presente y futuro. Boletín de la Asociación Herpetológica Española 21: 2-24