Caution Is Needed When Using Niche Models to Infer Changes in Species Abundance: The Case of Two Sympatric Raptor Populations.

ABSTRACT: Despite the mounting evidence supporting positive relationships between species abundance and habitat suitability, the capacity of ecological niche models (ENMs) to capture variations in population abundance remains largely unexplored. This study focuses on sympatric populations of hen harrier (Circus cyaneus) and Montagu's harrier (Circus pygargus), surveyed in 1997 and 2017 in an upland moor area in northwestern Spain. The ENMs performed very well for both species (with area under the ROC curve and true skill statistic values of up to 0.9 and 0.75). The presence of both species was mainly correlated with heathlands, although the normalized difference water index derived from Landsat images was the most important for hen harrier, indicating a greater preference of this speci

SUBMITTER: Regos A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8300138 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature