RangeShifter: a platform for modelling spatial eco-evolutionary dynamics and species' responses to environmental changes
Authored by Justin MJ Travis, Guy Pe'er, Greta Bocedi, Risto K Heikkinen, Stephen C F Palmer, Yiannis G Matsinos, Kevin Watts
Date Published: 2014
DOI: 10.1111/2041-210x.12162
Sponsors:
United Kingdom Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
Platforms:
No platforms listed
Model Documentation:
Other Narrative
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Model Code URLs:
Model code not found
Abstract
Rapid environmental changes are threatening biodiversity and exposing
species to novel ecological and evolutionary pressures. The scientific
community increasingly recognizes the need for dynamic models
integrating sufficient complexity both to improve our understanding of
species' responses to environmental changes and to inform effective
management strategies.
Using three illustrative examples, we introduce a novel modelling
platform, RangeShifter, which integrates complex population dynamics and
dispersal behaviour, includes plastic and evolutionary processes and
simulates scenarios on spatially explicit landscapes. The software
provides functionality for a wide variety of modelling applications
ranging from applied questions, where it can be parameterized for real
landscapes and species to compare alternative potential management
interventions, to purely theoretical studies of species'
eco-evolutionary dynamics and responses to different environmental
pressures.
RangeShifter provides an important tool for facilitating the advancement
of ecological theory on species' spatial dynamics in response to
environmental changes, and linking it directly to application in
biodiversity conservation.
Tags
Biodiversity
movement
Conservation
ecology
Dispersal
biogeography
Prediction
Climate-change
Structured populations
Range expansions