Impact of obscured data on species distribution models.

ABSTRACT: The lack of knowledge about geographic distribution and environmental preference can hinder conservation efforts for rare and threatened species. Open-source databases provide an opportunity to address these knowledge gaps through the geographic information they hold on species worldwide. However, to protect rare and endangered species, open-source databases often assign locations that do not match the original locations, which introduce inaccuracies in occurrence records (e.g., the "obscured" function in iNaturalist replaces the original location with a random location in a 0.2 × 0.2° cell). We tested the efficacy of the iNaturalist's obscured function in concealing geographic information and the function's impact on the species distribution modeling of 3 endangered species in South Korea

SUBMITTER: Koo KS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12451486 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature