ENVS 3010 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3.3: Ecological Niche
21 Jul 2016
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Document Summary
Methods for studying the impacts of climate change. Bioclimatic envelops and ecological niche models: these models relate to the basic ecological concept of the niche. Represents the intersection of all the abiotic factors that limit a species distribution. They are part of the modelling effort to study climate change impacts. Produce similar risk maps: bioclimatic envelope models. They use distributional data on the organism of interest and historical climate data and attempt to find a statistical relationship between these two data sets. Relies on the realized niche: ecological niche models. Use information on climate tolerances that are derived from experimental work. May be considered better because it relies on the fundamental niche and is mechanistic. Both approaches have performed better in different validation analyses: validation of the models. Done by comparing the results of the model with an independent data set: model shortcomings. Rely on current climate tolerances, which may not be the same in the future due to adaptation.
