Abstract
Forecasting the spatial spread of invasive species is important to inform management planning. Niche-based species distribution models offer a well-developed framework for assessing the potential range of species. However, these models assume equilibrium between the species’ distribution and its ecological requirements. During range expansion, invasive species are not in such equilibrium due to both dispersal limitation and frequent casual occurrence in sites unsuitable to persistent populations. In this article we use the example of the invasive annual plant Ambrosia artemisiifolia in Austria to evaluate if model accuracy can be enhanced in such non-equilibrium situations by taking account of propagule pressure and by restricting model calibration to naturalized populations. Moreover, we test if model accuracy increases during invasion history using distribution data from 1984 to 2005. The results suggest that models calibrated with naturalized populations are much more accurate than those based on the total set of records. Proxies of propagule pressure slightly but significantly improve goodness of fit, accuracy, and Type I and II error rates of models calibrated with all available records but have less consistent effects on models of naturalized populations. Model accuracy did not increase during the recent invasion history, probably because the species is still far from an equilibrium distribution. We conclude that even a coarse assessment of population status with records of invasive species delivers important information for predictive modelling and that proxies of propagule pressure should be included into such models at least during early to intermediate stages of the invasion history.
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Abbreviations
- A:
-
Autologistic variable
- AUC:
-
Area under the receiver operating curve
- CA:
-
Percentage area of calcareous substrates
- CU:
-
Curvature
- DEM:
-
Digital elevation model
- FMA:
-
Floristic Mapping of Austria
- GAM:
-
Generalized Additive Model
- GBM:
-
Gradient Boosting Machines
- GLM:
-
Generalized Linear Model
- IAS:
-
Invasive alien species
- LC:
-
Percentage area of human settlements and agricultural fields
- PW:
-
Precipitation sum of the winter months
- S:
-
Length of major streets
- SENS:
-
Sensitivity
- SPEC:
-
Specificity
- T7:
-
Mean monthly temperature of July
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Acknowledgements
This work has been partially financed by funds from the Austrian research programme AUSTROCLIM. We are grateful to Chris Randin for providing R software, and to H. Niklfeld, L. Schratt-Ehrendorfer and T. Englisch for access to the data of the project ‘Mapping the Flora of Austria’. Valuable distribution data have been provided by numerous other colleagues.
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Dullinger, S., Kleinbauer, I., Peterseil, J. et al. Niche based distribution modelling of an invasive alien plant: effects of population status, propagule pressure and invasion history. Biol Invasions 11, 2401–2414 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-009-9424-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-009-9424-5