Talk:Species distribution modelling

Title and connections to other articles

Niche models - I would say that the more common term is species distribution models, which is also the terminology used by the references in the further reading section.

Also, I find that the article is insufficiently connected with other articles that are dealing with the same topic, e.g. Range_(biology), Species_distribution, both in terms of links and in terms of consistency of terminology.

"species distribution" in the article links to Biogeography, which doesn't make sense at all to me, so I will change that immediately —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.224.220.209 (talk) 21:01, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

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Well, a google search for "niche models" yields 18,600 results as of now, some of which are for modelling agencies :). The same for "species distribution models" yields 940,000 hits. So I guess you are right, even though my experience to date is almost entirely with the former terminology. Maybe one of us should create the relevant page and redirect the current one to it - fine with me.Tony1212 (talk) 09:45, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

After some more thought, I feel that "species distribution models" is a broader term under which "environmental niche models" fit as a subset, so I am happy again with the title of this page - species distribution models may include many other things e.g. founder effects, larval dispersal or pollination, continental drift, barriers to dispersal, effects of exploitation or introduction - you name it. This page deals more specifically with those species models produced primarily or solely from overlays of environmental layers on known distributions to produce maps of potential distributions according to those parameters. Similarly, I feel that "ecological niche modelling", while close, is also not an exact fit since to my mind this includes the influence of biotic factors (for example predator/prey, and suitable habitat) as well as purely environmental factors. I will chase some additional references/further reading too, at least some of which will better reflect my preferred term as above, I believe.Tony1212 (talk) 23:34, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

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Re. the title, I second the first comment in suggesting "Niche-based models" rather than environmental niche modelling. The former produces >30,000,000 hits with google vs. about 10,000.000 for the latter, and is widely used in the scientific literature. Furthermore, the term "environment" has different meanings in layman's language and scientific language (for most environment is what scientists refer to as abiotic environments). I added a bit about the difference between realised and fundamental niche in the article Chercheurdoz (talk) 09:28, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure that number of Google hits is a good indicator of appropriate scientific terminology. Newer (and possibly more accurate) terminology will have had less time to percolate out into the world, and so will produce fewer Google hits. As for the determination of which is "correct", the scientific literature in this area is still very much in flux and there are seemingly valid arguments being made in favor of both terms. Some feel that the limitations of a correlational approach to modeling the niche are such that these models can't really be said to infer the fundamental niche accurately, and they recommend the term "Species Distribution Model (SDM)". Others point out that the use of these models in projecting into new geographic regions or times periods (i.e., outside of the training area/time period) implies that the model contains some information regarding the species tolerances, and as such it is implicitly treated as a model of the species regardless of what it is called. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.233.36.12 (talk) 21:11, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Requested move 27 November 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved (non-admin closure) Iffy★Chat -- 12:54, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

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Environmental niche modelling → Species Distribution Modelling – The term "Species Distribution Modelling" is more generic and is currently more widely used in the field of ecology and the scientific literature. Hits on Google Scholar for the full phrase "species distribution models": 24,000, "environmental niche models": 2,000 Tlrogers (talk) 01:50, 27 November 2018 (UTC) --Relisting. Steel1943 (talk) 22:14, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Support I agree that this should be renamed "Species distribution modeling" since it is much more common use in the field. The name change will make this article more discoverable through web searches and the topic more relevant. I only suggest to use lower case "d" and "m" for "distribution modeling" per Wikipedia naming conventions. Jayzlimno (talk) 02:09, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support I also agree that species distribution modeling is both more accurate and more common in the field of ecology, and I support the name change. EditorWB (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:14, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support I agree that this should be renamed "Species distribution modeling" given that it represents the more commonly used terminology. Ernielarson (talk) 02:16, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support I agree that this should be renamed "Species distribution modeling". Not only is the term more common, but the exact method for measuring a "niche" is still in debate so calling it a niche model makes it dated. Allicramer (talk) 05:54, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Relisting due to Plantdrew's concerns stated below.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Steel1943 (talk) 22:14, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

• Support Move seems reasonable, and I didn't intend to derail the process when I pointed out an issue with some enthusiastic new editors not being aware of some Wikipedia rules. Plantdrew (talk) 22:29, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

• Comment can anyone provide evidence of "Species distribution modeling" being the most common name, or at least more common than any of the alternatives? I don't doubt that the bold terms in the lede are for all practical purposes functionally synonymous (e.g. [1], [2]), but beyond mere hunches is there any good reason that "species distribution modelling" is the most commonly recognizable name and primary topic (see WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT)? The discussions above discuss relative frequency of Google hits, but regarding somewhat different terms. Also, welcome to all new editors from WP:L&O. I hope your primary focus on improving and expanding articles (this one is pretty poor, especially for people who aren't environmentally modelers): renaming articles is rather trivial. --Animalparty! (talk) 22:49, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

SDM and ENM are used pretty synonymously in the literature nowadays; however, the most cited review papers on this topic use the term SDM as opposed to ENM. The most highly cited, authoritative review on correlative SDM/ENM is Elith and Leathwick (2009) "Species Distribution Models: Ecological Explanation and Prediction Across Space and Time", [3] which is also cited on the page under discussion. One of the most highly cited reviews of mechanistic SDM/ENM is Kearney and Porter (2009) "Mechanistic niche modelling: combining physiological and spatial data to predict species' ranges" [4]. Despite the title, the first line of the abstract is "Species distribution models (SDMs) use spatial environmental data to make inferences on species' range limits and habitat suitability", and the term SDM is used throughout the entire paper. More importantly, Elith and Leathwick (2009) include a discussion of recent (at the time) "debate on the relationship between SDMs and the species niche", ultimately concluding "In our view, a more realistic stance is to retain a healthy skepticism about which components of the niche are represented by predictions from an SDM ... Use of neutral terminology to describe species distributional models (SDM rather than ENM) seems preferable." In the intervening years, the more generic and neutral term SDM has come into more wide use in the scientific community. As previously mentioned, SDM is used more commonly than ENM (or any of its derivatives) in articles on Google Scholar, particularly for recent articles. Also, in my personal experience working in this field and attending conferences, it is more common for researchers to use the term SDM. Beyond changing the title, I would like to try and update and expand the content of this article as part of the goals of the L&O Wikiproject, but just haven't had time yet. Tlrogers (talk) 02:00, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

While you should take Google hits of any sort with an appropriate grain of salt, consider hits of SDM on Google Scholar since 2018 [5] (I'm getting 30k hits) with ENM (8k). Guettarda (talk) 04:28, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

• Support - this seems reasonable to me. Guettarda (talk) 04:28, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

What's going on here? A bunch of newish editors with few other edits, all members of Wikipedia:WikiProject Limnology and Oceanography are supporting the move (and with the same formatting errors in their supports). That looks a lot like there's some Wikipedia:Canvassing, perhaps coordinated off-Wikipedia. That doesn't mean there isn't some merit to the proposed move (I think it is reasonable), but as an established Wikipedian, this doesn't look good, and it isn't how we do things around here. Plantdrew (talk) 20:56, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi Plantdrew, we're sorry if our approach was not standard Wikipedia protocols, that was not our intention. We were following the guidelines to moving a page name and are open to discussion of whether to keep it as Environmental niche modelling or the proposed move to Species distribution modeling. We in the L&O Wikiproject are highly educated, practicing scientists going out of our traditional comfort zone and to try and contribute what we have learned to Wikipedia. Since many of us are relatively new to editing Wikipedia, we are still figuring things out, and would appreciate any helpful tips for following Wikipedia standards if (and more likely "when") we do error. Thanks for pointing out the formatting errors in the support, that is now fixed. Jayzlimno (talk) 16:08, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

@Jayzlimno:, I appreciate your intention to contribute to Wikipedia and want to help you out. Move requests are supposed to be evaluated on the strength of the arguments, not a numerical vote. It shouldn't be necessary to have a whole bunch of people all making the same argument. However, move discussions that attract very few participants may be relisted one or more times, delaying the move. With five participants in the discussion now, relisting is unlikely.

I would encourage L&O project participants to add that WikiProject page to their watchlists. There's a bot that posts notifications when an L&O tagged article is requested to be moved. It's not canvassing if people are alerted to a move request by seeing a notification on a relevant WikiProject page. It is canvassing if somebody encourages people they know will support a move (via social media, forum, mailing list, or on Wikipedia itself) to come to Wikipedia and voice their opinion. With the move and 3 supporting comments being posted within 26 minutes, it's pretty clear that people were specifically asked to add a comment supporting the move. L&O participants should add the project page (and any other articles of interest) to their watchlist and should endeavor to check their watchlists every few days. Plantdrew (talk) 18:11, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: thank you for the clarification and recommendations for how to appropriately request an article move. We were having an editathon for our L&O WikiProject which is why the supports were in quick succession and we received a bot message about the move request on our WikiProject L&O talk page. We will encourage participants to add the wikiproject and other articles to their watch list and check somewhat frequently and we'll avoid requesting a page move during an editathon in the future. Thanks for the advice! Jayzlimno (talk) 18:39, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

• @Plantdrew: I relisted this discussion due to the concerns you presented. I guess at this point, if no one opposes in the next 7 days, I’d say it’s probably good to go. Steel1943 (talk) 22:15, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

About ecological niche models being synonym of species distribution model

Ecological niche models are conceptually different to species distribution model; there are enough literature dealing with this subject. It should be changed as it keep creating confusion in the readers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.172.213.167 (talk) 23:08, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Merge debate

Please have a look at Portal talk:Biology#Species distribution / Geographic range limit / Species distribution modelling. In fact I don't really suggest a merge. I suggest this to be discussed only. Regards. Kintaro (talk) 21:19, 11 April 2020 (UTC)