Trends and biases in global scientific literature about ecological niche models

Abstract Recently, ecological niche models have been employed to investigate the potential geographical distribution of species. However, it is necessary to analyze the vast number of publications on this topic to understand the trends and biases of research using ecological niche models (ENMs). Therefore, this study aims to investigate trends in the scientific literature regarding studies on ENMs. For the quantitative analysis of the literature on ENMs, we performed a search in the Thomson ISI (Web of Science) database between 1991 and 2013. The search identified 3042 papers containing preselected keywords in either the title or abstract. The results showed that the number of papers has increased over the years (r=0.77, P<0.001), with a sharp increase in recent years, highlighting the widespread use of the ENMs. There was an increase in the diversity of journals that published papers about ENMs (r=0.97, P<0.001). The research was conducted in different countries, predominantly the United States of America (550 papers), and the most commonly used method was the Maximum Entropy method (312 papers). Regarding the taxonomic group, most research has been conducted on plants (402 papers, or 28.36% of the total). There was no relationship between the modeling method used and the taxonomic group studied (χ2=4.8, P=0.15). Finally, the wide availability of biological, environmental and computational resources has elicited the broad use of tools for ENMs. Despite the conceptual discussions of the ENMs, this method is currently the most effective way to evaluate the potential geographical distribution of species, and to predict the distribution under different environmental conditions (i.e., future or past scenarios).

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Using ecological niche models to describe the geographical distribution of the myiasis-causing Cochliomyia hominivorax (Diptera: Calliphoridae) in southern South America

Parasitology Research ◽

10.1007/s00436-019-06267-0 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 118 (4) ◽

pp. 1077-1086 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Pablo Ricardo Mulieri ◽

Luciano Damián Patitucci

Keyword(s):

South America ◽

Geographical Distribution ◽

Ecological Niche ◽

Cochliomyia Hominivorax ◽

Ecological Niche Models ◽

Southern South America ◽

Niche Models

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Use of ecological niche models to predict the distribution of invasive species: a scientometric analysis

Brazilian Journal of Biology ◽

10.1590/s1519-69842012000500007 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 72 (4) ◽

pp. 821-829 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

FG. Barbosa ◽

F. Schneck ◽

AS. Melo

Keyword(s):

Invasive Species ◽

Ecological Niche ◽

Scientific Information ◽

The United States ◽

Scientometric Analysis ◽

Ecological Niche Models ◽

Terrestrial Environments ◽

The Usa ◽

Rule Set ◽

Niche Models

We conducted a scientometric analysis to determine the main trends and gaps of studies on the use of ecological niche models (ENMs) to predict the distribution of invasive species. We used the database of the Thomson Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). We found 190 papers published between 1991 and 2010 in 82 journals. The number of papers was low in the 1990s, but began to increase after 2003. One-third of the papers were published by researchers from the United States of America, and consequently, the USA was also the most studied region. The majority of studies were carried out in terrestrial environments, while only a few investigated aquatic systems, probably because important aquatic predictor variables are scarce or unavailable for most regions in the world. Species-occurrence records were mainly composed of presence-only records, and almost 70% of the studies were carried out with plants and insects. Twenty-three different distribution modelling methods were used. The Genetic Algorithm for Rule-set Production (GARP) was used most often. Our scientometric analysis showed a growing interest in the use of ENMs to predict the distribution of invasive species, especially in the last decade, which is probably related to the increase in species introductions worldwide. Among some important gaps that need to be filled, the relatively small number of studies conducted in developing countries and in aquatic environments deserves careful attention.

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