by Pedro Henrique P. Braga and Julia Nordlund
Species distribution models (SDM) have been widely applied to address many questions in biology, such as in the domains of ecology, evolution, biogeography and conservation. Applications are numerous and may include projecting potential impacts of climate change, predicting species invasions, conservation planning, addressing questions of ecological niche evolution, and estimating potential disease spread. Along with the increase in popularity of species distribution models, many methods and tools have been developed throughout the last decades. Most of these tools are now available within R packages. This course introduces fundamental concepts underpinning species distribution models, describing some of the most prominent methods currently in use, and discussing the strengths and limitations of these models for different applications.