Understanding the factors promoting species formation is a major task in evolutionary research. Here, we employ an integrative approach to study the evolutionary history of the Californian scrub white oak species complex (genus Quercus). To infer the relative importance of geographical isolation and ecological divergence in driving the speciation process, we (i) analysed inter- and intraspecifi...

Tanzania's Ruaha landscape is an international priority area for large carnivores, supporting over 10% of the world's lions and important populations of leopards and spotted hyaenas. However, lack of ecological data on large carnivore distribution and habitat use hinders the development of effective carnivore conservation strategies in this critical landscape. Therefore, the study aimed to (i) ...

Understanding how species ranges shift as climates rapidly change informs us to effectively conserve vulnerable species. Species distribution models (SDMs) are an important method for examining these range shifts. The tools performing SDMs ever improving. Here, we present the megaSDM R package. This package facilitates realistic spatiotemporal SDM analyses by incorporating dispersal probabiliti...

Species distribution models (SDMs) are powerful tools in ecology and conservation. Choosing the right environmental drivers filtering species' occurrences taking their biases into account key factors to consider before modeling. In this case study, we address five common problems arising during selection of input data for presence-only SDMs on an example a generalist species: endangered Cantabr...

The prevailing trend of increasing urbanization and habitat fragmentation makes knowledge species’ requirements distribution a crucial factor in conservation urban planning. Species models (SDMs) offer powerful toolboxes for discriminating the underlying environmental factors driving suitability. Nevertheless, challenges SDMs emerge if multiple data sets - often sampled with different intention...

Aim Species distribution models (SDMs) have been used widely to predict the responses of species climate change. However, data drive these typically represents ambient air temperatures, derived from measurements taken 1–2 m above ground. Most plant live near ground where temperatures can differ significantly, owing effects solar radiation and reduced wind speed. Here, we investigate differences...

Understanding the ranges of rare and endangered species is central to conserving biodiversity in Anthropocene. Species distribution models (SDMs) have become a common powerful tool for analyzing species–environment relationships across geographic space. Although evaluating integral their conservation, this can be difficult when limited data are available. Community science platforms, such as iN...

Few studies have assessed the influence of data quality on predicted probability occurrence and preferred habitat marine predators. We compared results from four species distribution models (SDMs) for southern-hemisphere albatross species, Buller’s ( Thalassarche bulleri ), Campbell T. impavida grey-headed chrysostoma white-capped steadi based datasets differing quality, ranging no location to ...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Although extreme climatic events such as drought are known to modify forest dynamics by triggering tree dieback, the impact of extreme cold events, especially at the low-latitude margin ('rear edge') of species distributional ranges, has received little attention. The aim of this study was to examine the impact of one such extreme cold event on a population of Scots pine (Pi...