Interactive spatial scale effects on species distribution modeling: The case of the giant panda.

ABSTRACT: Research has shown that varying spatial scale through the selection of the total extent of investigation and the grain size of environmental predictor variables has effects on species distribution model (SDM) results and accuracy, but there has been minimal investigation into the interactive effects of extent and grain. To do this, we used a consistently sampled range-wide dataset of giant panda occurrence across southwest China and modeled their habitat and distribution at 4 extents and 7 grain sizes. We found that increasing grain size reduced model accuracy at the smallest extent, but that increasing extent negated this effect. Increasing extent also generally increased model accuracy, but the models built at the second-largest (mountain range) extent were more accurate than those built

SUBMITTER: Connor T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6787011 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature