Evaluating collinearity effects on species distribution models: An approach based on virtual species simulation.

ABSTRACT: The increasing use of species distribution modeling (SDM) has raised new concerns regarding the inaccuracies, misunderstanding, and misuses of this important tool. One of those possible pitfalls - collinearity among environmental predictors - is assumed as an important source of model uncertainty, although it has not been subjected to a detailed evaluation in recent SDM studies. It is expected that collinearity will increase uncertainty in model parameters and decrease statistical power. Here we use a virtual species approach to compare models built using subsets of PCA-derived variables with models based on the original highly correlated climate variables. Moreover, we evaluated whether modelling algorithms and species data characteristics generate models with varying sensitivity to colli

SUBMITTER: De Marco P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6133275 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature