eprintid: 10096382 rev_number: 72 eprint_status: archive userid: 608 dir: disk0/10/09/63/82 datestamp: 2020-04-29 10:47:04 lastmod: 2021-10-13 22:51:51 status_changed: 2020-09-16 18:26:38 type: article metadata_visibility: show creators_name: Turvey, ST creators_name: Kennerley, RJ creators_name: Hudson, MA creators_name: Nuñez-Miño, JM creators_name: Young, RP title: Assessing congruence of opportunistic records and systematic surveys for predicting Hispaniolan mammal species distributions ispublished: pub divisions: UCL divisions: B02 divisions: C08 divisions: D09 keywords: Dominican Republic, historical records, hutia maxent solenodon, species distribution model note: Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. abstract: Comparative assessment of the relative information content of different independent spatial data types is necessary to evaluate whether they provide congruent biogeographic signals for predicting species ranges. Opportunistic occurrence records and systematically collected survey data are available from the Dominican Republic for Hispaniola’s surviving endemic non‐volant mammals, the Hispaniolan solenodon (Solenodon paradoxus) and Hispaniolan hutia (Plagiodontia aedium); opportunistic records (archaeological, historical and recent) exist from across the entire country, and systematic survey data have been collected from seven protected areas. Species distribution models were developed in maxent for solenodons and hutias using both data types, with species habitat suitability and potential country‐level distribution predicted using seven biotic and abiotic environmental variables. Three different models were produced and compared for each species: (a) opportunistic model, with starting model incorporating abiotic‐only predictors; (b) total survey model, with starting model incorporating biotic and abiotic predictors; and (c) reduced survey model, with starting model incorporating abiotic‐only predictors to allow further comparison with the opportunistic model. All models predict suitable environmental conditions for both solenodons and hutias across a broadly congruent, relatively large area of the Dominican Republic, providing a spatial baseline of conservation‐priority landscapes that might support native mammals. Correlation between total and reduced survey models is high for both species, indicating the substantial explanatory power of abiotic variables for predicting Hispaniolan mammal distributions. However, correlation between survey models and opportunistic models is only moderately positive. Species distribution models derived from different data types can provide different predictions about habitat suitability and conservation‐priority landscapes for threatened species, likely reflecting incompleteness and bias in spatial sampling associated with both data types. Models derived using both opportunistic and systematic data must therefore be applied critically and cautiously. date: 2020-06 date_type: published publisher: Wiley official_url: https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6258 oa_status: green full_text_type: pub language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green verified: verified_manual elements_id: 1778911 doi: 10.1002/ece3.6258 lyricists_name: Turvey, Samuel lyricists_id: STURV99 actors_name: Dewerpe, Marie actors_id: MDDEW97 actors_role: owner full_text_status: public publication: Ecology and Evolution volume: 10 number: 11 pagerange: 5056-5068 issn: 2045-7758 citation: Turvey, ST; Kennerley, RJ; Hudson, MA; Nuñez-Miño, JM; Young, RP; (2020) Assessing congruence of opportunistic records and systematic surveys for predicting Hispaniolan mammal species distributions. Ecology and Evolution , 10 (11) pp. 5056-5068. 10.1002/ece3.6258 <https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6258>. Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10096382/1/Turvey_ece3.6258.pdf