Thesis abstract. Applying species distribution modeling for the conservation of Iberian protected invertebrates

ISSN 1948‐6596 news and update thesis abstract Applying species distribution modeling for the conservation of Iberian protected invertebrates Rosa Maria Chefaoui PhD Thesis, Departamento de Biodiversidad y Biologia Evolutiva, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, c/ Jose Gutierrez Abascal 2, 28006 Madrid, Spain. e‐mail: rosa.chef@gmail.com; http://www.biogeografia.org/ Abstract. This article outlines the approaches to modeling the distribution of threatened invertebrates using data from atlases, museums and databases. Species Distribution Models (SDMs) are useful for esti‐ mating species’ ranges, identifying suitable habitats, and identifying the primary factors affecting species’ distributions. The study tackles the strategies used to obtain SDMs without reliable absence data while exploring their applications for conservation. I examine the conservation status of Copris species and Graellsia isabelae by delimiting their populations and exploring the effectiveness of protected areas. I show that the method of pseudo‐absence selection strongly determines the model obtained, generating different model predictions along the gradient between potential and realized distributions. After assess‐ ing the effects of species’ traits and data characteristics on accuracy, I found that species are modeled more accurately when sample sizes are larger, no matter the technique used. Keywords: Environmental niche modeling, Iberian Peninsula, invertebrates, predictive accuracy, species distribution models The rapid disappearance of habitats and species starkly contrasts the need to conserve biodiversity against our inability to inventory and protect all species individually. Knowledge about biodiversity remains insufficient because many species are still not described (the Linnean Shortfall ; Brown and Lomolino 1998) and the distributions of de‐ scribed species often are inadequately defined (the Wallacean Shortfall ; Lomolino 2004). It is therefore essential to identify threatened species and describe their distributions using approaches that overcome the time and budget constraints of systematic conservation planning. Araujo et al. (2007) demonstrated the need for additional protected areas for the effective conservation of the diversity of plants and verte‐ brates in the Iberian Peninsula. Preliminary data suggest that the existing network of reserves also would be ineffective in representing invertebrate species (Verdu and Galante 2009). Unfortunately, the conservation of invertebrates faces serious challenges due to their high diversity, complex life cycles and difficult taxonomy, among other factors (see New 1998). Geographic Information Systems (GIS) sig‐ nificantly advanced the conservation of endan‐ gered species because they allow us to delimit species’ potential distributions (e.g. Hortal et al. to control their populations (e.g. Davies et al. 2005), to analyze their niche (Peterson et al. 2002), design networks of pro‐ tected areas (e.g. Pearce and Boyce 2006), and to forecast the future (e.g. Hill et al. 2002). Together, the databases taken from atlases, museums and herbaria have emerged as a valuable source of species’ occurrence records (e.g. Elith and Leath‐ wick 2007). Unfortunately, these data from het‐ erogeneous sources may contain errors or have been obtained using a biased sampling pro‐ cedure (Hortal et al. 2007, 2008, Newbold 2010). Besides, they do not usually provide reli‐ able absences needed to perform consistent pre‐ dictive models (Anderson et al. 2003, Lobo et al. 2007), so alternatives have been sought generat‐ ing models based only on presences (Hirzel et al. 2002, Pearce and Boyce 2006), sometimes em‐ ploying pseudo‐absences obtained in different ways (Zaniewski et al. 2002, Engler et al. 2004, frontiers of biogeography 3.3, 2011 — © 2011 the authors; journal compilation © 2011 The International Biogeography Society