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Aim: Species distribution models (SDMs) have emerged as essential tools in the equipment of many ecologists, useful to explore species distributions in space and time and answering an assortment of questions related to biogeography, climate change biology and conservation biology. Historically, most SDM research concentrated on well‐known organisms, especially vertebrates. In recent years, these tools are becoming increasingly important for predicting the distribution of understudied invertebrate taxa. Here, we reviewed the literature published on main terrestrial arthropod predators (ants, ground beetles and spiders) to explore some of the challenges and opportunities of species distribution modelling in mega‐diverse arthropod groups. Location: Global. Methods: Systematic mapping of the literature and bibliometric analysis. Results: Most SDM studies of animals to date have focused either on broad samples of vertebrates or on arthropod species that are charismatic (e.g. butterflies) or economically important (e.g. vectors of disease, crop pests and pollinators). We show that the use of SDMs to map the geography of terrestrial arthropod predators is a nascent phenomenon, with a near‐exponential growth in the number of studies over the past ten years and still limited collaborative networks among researchers. There is a bias in studies towards charismatic species and geographical areas that hold lower levels of diversity but greater availability of data, such as Europe and North America. Conclusions: Arthropods pose particular modelling challenges that add to the ones already present for vertebrates, but they should also offer opportunities for future SDM research as data and new methods are made available. To overcome data limitations, we illustrate the potential of modern data sources and new modelling approaches. We discuss areas of research where SDMs may be combined with dispersal models and increasingly available phylogenetic and functional data to understand evolutionary changes in ranges and range‐limiting traits over past and contemporary time‐scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last few centuries oceanic island biodiversity has been drastically modified by human-mediated activities. These changes have led to the increased homogenization of island biota and to a high number of extinctions lending support to the recognition of oceanic islands as major threatspots worldwide. Here, we investigate the impact of habitat changes on the spider and ground beetle assemblages of the native forests of Madeira (Madeira archipelago) and Terceira (Azores archipelago) and evaluate its effects on the relative contribution of rare endemics and introduced species to island biodiversity patterns. We found that the native laurel forest of Madeira supported higher species richness of spiders and ground beetles compared with Terceira, including a much larger proportion of indigenous species, particularly endemics. In Terceira, introduced species are well-represented in both terrestrial arthropod taxa and seem to thrive in native forests as shown by the analysis of species abundance distributions (SAD) and occupancy frequency distributions (OFD). Low abundance range-restricted species in Terceira are mostly introduced species dispersing from neighbouring man-made habitats while in Madeira a large number of true rare endemic species can still be found in the native laurel forest. Further, our comparative analysis shows striking differences in species richness and composition that are due to the geographical and geological particularities of the two islands, but also seem to reflect the differences in the severity of human-mediated impacts between them. The high proportion of introduced species, the virtual absence of rare native species and the finding that the SADs and OFDs of introduced species match the pattern of native species in Terceira suggest the role of man as an important driver of species diversity in oceanic islands and add evidence for an extensive and severe human-induced species loss in the native forests of Terceira. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Azorean lava-tubes and volcanic pits adequately sampled for arthropod fauna were evaluated for species diversity and rarity. An iterative partial multiple regression analysis was performed to produce a multi-criteria index (Importance Value for Cave Conservation, IV-CC) incorporating arthropod species diversity indices but also including indices qualifying cave geological and management features (e.g., the diversity of geological structures, threats, accessibility). Additionally, we calculated complementarity solutions (irreplaceability and Fraction-of-Spare measures) for each cave with different targets per species, i.e., the minimum number of caves needed for each species to be represented either once or twice. Our results clearly show that to preserve all troglobiont arthropods endemic to the Azores, it is crucial to protect several caves per island. As many as 10 and 15 caves are needed to include one or two occurrences, respectively, per species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]