Accessible areas in ecological niche comparisons of invasive species: Recognized but still overlooked.

ABSTRACT: Understanding biological invasions is crucial for their control and prevention. Specially, establishing whether invasive species operate within the constraint of conservative ecological niches, or if niche shifts occur at all commonly as part of the invasion process, is indispensable to identifying and anticipating potential areas of invasion. Ecological niche modeling (ENM) has been used to address such questions, but improvements and debate in study design, model evaluation, and methods are still needed to mature this field. We reanalyze data for Gray Squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis), native to North America, but invasive in Europe. Our main finding was that, when the analysis extent is established carefully based on analogous sets of environmental conditions, all evidence of niche shift

SUBMITTER: Qiao H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5430674 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature