Abstract
Species Distribution Models (SDMs) are commonly used statistical tools
in conservation biology, global change assessment, and reserve
prioritization. Correlative SDMs relate species occurrences to
environmental conditions, and it is common to model heterogeneity in the
data with coarse-scale spatial and temporal predictors. However, this
approach neglects the fine-scale environmental conditions experienced by
most organisms. Further, most SDMs use occurrence data from short-term
studies but make long-term predictions of future conditions. We compare
four modeling frameworks that varied the temporal extent (short-term
[1 year] versus long-term [10 years]) and resolution of
environmental data (fine versus coarse). We expected that long-term data
and finer temporal resolution of environmental variables would provide
more accurate model predictions because they integrate variability in
population sizes under varying microclimatic conditions. We built SDMs
for 37 bird species in the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest, Cascade
Range, Oregon (USA). We used a 10-year (2010-2019) time series of annual
observations during breeding season across 184 sites as response
variables and gridded maps of hourly below forest canopy microclimate
temperatures and LiDAR-derived vegetation variables as predictors. We
evaluated the interannual transferability of long- versus short-term
models and fine versus coarse-resolution temperature models; we also
tested whether species’ functional traits affected the performance of
models. Temporally dynamic (long-term) models with higher-resolution
microclimate data outperformed static and short-term approaches in terms
of performance (AUC difference ~ 0.10, TSS difference
~ 0.12). Model performance and similarity between
spatial predictions were higher for dynamic rather than static models,
especially for migratory species. Models for small bird species
performed better as temporal resolution increased, whereas for
long-lived species with larger body sizes, dynamic approaches performed
similarly to static models. We advocate for increased use of fine-scale,
long-term data in SDMs to boost the performance and reliability of
future predictions under global change.