A place to understand species distribution modeling

Welcome to Niches and Areas

If you are here you are probably interested in modeling areas of distribution, the niches of species, or both. This is a website with an emphasis in concepts about modeling distributions via modeling "niches". We will tell you how to do things, but our main concern is in discussing the basic ideas of modeling niches and areas of distribution.

First, NICHES are abstract representations of the response curves of populations to environmental variables. They are conceptual objects in multidimensional space. AREAS are regions of geographic space, where species have certain biological properties (like source populations). Areas and Niches are NOT the same thing. One can model either without reference to the other, or one can combine both.

There are three basic questions that will determine your choice of modelling strategy:

1) What kinds of data you have (only presences, presences and absences, presences and background)

2) What are you attempting to model (actual area, potential area, fundamental niche, realized niche?)

3) What is the biological configuration of your problem (continuous region, archipelago, specialized or generalist herbivore...)

See a further discussion of these questions in the BAM section