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Life History Traits and Niche Instability Impact Accuracy and Temporal Transferability for Historically Calibrated Distribution Models of North American Birds.

ABSTRACT: A primary assumption of environmental niche models (ENMs) is that models are both accurate and transferable across geography or time; however, recent work has shown that models may be accurate but not highly transferable. While some of this is due to modeling technique, individual species ecologies may also underlie this phenomenon. Life history traits certainly influence the accuracy of predictive ENMs, but their impact on model transferability is less understood. This study investigated how life history traits influence the predictive accuracy and transferability of ENMs using historically calibrated models for birds. In this study I used historical occurrence and climate data (1950-1990s) to build models for a sample of birds, and then projected them forward to the 'future' (1960-1990s). The models were then validated against models generated from occurrence data at that 'future' time. Internal and external validation metrics, as well as metrics assessing transferability, and Generalized Linear Models were used to identify life history traits that were significant predictors of accuracy and transferability. This study found that the predictive ability of ENMs differs with regard to life history characteristics such as range, migration, and habitat, and that the rarity versus commonness of a species affects the predicted stability and overlap and hence the transferability of projected models. Projected ENMs with both high accuracy and transferability scores, still sometimes suffered from over- or under- predicted species ranges. Life history traits certainly influenced the accuracy of predictive ENMs for birds, but while aspects of geographic range impact model transferability, the mechanisms underlying this are less understood.

SUBMITTER: Wogan GO

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4784944 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Insecticide usage in the United States is ubiquitous in urban, suburban, and rural environments. There is accumulating evidence that insecticides adversely affect non-target wildlife species, including birds, causing mortality, reproductive impairment, and indirect effects through loss of prey base, and the type and magnitude of such effects differs by chemical class, or mode of action. In evaluating data for an insecticide registration application and for registration review, scientists at the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) assess the fate of the insecticide and the risk the insecticide poses to the environment and non-target wildlife. Current USEPA risk assessments for pesticides generally rely on endpoints from laboratory based toxicity studies focused on groups of individuals and do not directly assess population-level endpoints. In this paper, we present a mechanistic model, which allows risk assessors to estimate the effects of insecticide exposure on the survival and seasonal productivity of birds known to forage in agricultural fields during their breeding season. This model relies on individual-based toxicity data and translates effects into endpoints meaningful at the population level (i.e., magnitude of mortality and reproductive impairment). The model was created from two existing USEPA avian risk assessment models, the Terrestrial Investigation Model (TIM v.3.0) and the Markov Chain Nest Productivity model (MCnest). The integrated TIM/MCnest model was used to assess the relative risk of 12 insecticides applied via aerial spray to control corn pests on a suite of 31 avian species known to forage in cornfields in agroecosystems of the Midwest, USA. We found extensive differences in risk to birds among insecticides, with chlorpyrifos and malathion (organophosphates) generally posing the greatest risk, and bifenthrin and λ-cyhalothrin (pyrethroids) posing the least risk. Comparative sensitivity analysis across the 31 species showed that ecological trait parameters related to the timing of breeding and reproductive output per nest attempt offered the greatest explanatory power for predicting the magnitude of risk. An important advantage of TIM/MCnest is that it allows risk assessors to rationally combine both acute (lethal) and chronic (reproductive) effects into a single unified measure of risk.

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Life History Traits and Niche Instability Impact Accuracy and Temporal Transferability for Historically Calibrated Distribution Models of North American Birds.

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