Correlation and process in species distribution models: bridging a dichotomy

The most commonly used approaches to describe distributions of species and biodiversity are known as correlative (syn. phenomenological) species distribution models (Elith & Leathwick, 2009). These methods aim to describe the patterns, not the mechanisms, in the association between species occurrences and environmental data (mainly climatic data). Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Department Computational Landscape Ecology, 04318 Leipzig, Germany, Biometry and Environmental System Analysis, Faculty of Forest and Environmental Sciences, University of Freiburg, D-79106 Freiburg, Germany, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, 07745 Jena, Germany, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, CH-8092 Zürich, Switzerland, Free Floater Group Biodiversity, Macroecology and Conservation Biogeography, 37077 Göttingen, Germany, Equipe BIOFLUX, Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive–CNRS, 34293 Montpellier Cedex 05, France, Department of Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook, NY 11794-5245, USA, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Department Ecological Modelling, 04318 Leipzig, Germany, Department of Zoology, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Vic. 3010, Australia, ETH Zürich, Forest Ecology, Institut für Terrestrische Ökosysteme, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland, Institute for Physical Geography, Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, D-60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Theoretical Ecology, Faculty of Biology and Preclinical Medicine, University of Regensburg, 93040 Regensburg, Germany, Potsdam University, Institute of Geoecology, D-14476 Potsdam, Germany, Technical University Munich, Landscape Ecology, 85354 Freising, Germany