Movement distances enhance validity of predictive models

Including the distance species are able to move in predictive models improves conservation practice. Bird inventory projects carried out from 1993 to 2004 in Taiwan provide an opportunity to investigate the relationships among species distribution, movement distance, and the environment. We compared projected distributions of 17 Taiwanese endemic bird species using what we called the Standard Method (i.e. movement distance is zero) and what we called the Buffer Method (i.e. movement distance is longer than zero) in three presence-only models (GARP, MAXENT and LIVES). The Standard Method used species original occurrence records directly while the Buffer Method expanded the occurrence of species to areas 1km2 around each recorded location. We first tested the efficacy of the Buffer Method using ten common species of the 17, and then applied the method to two rare species of the 17. For both the common and rare species, the distributions predicted by the two methods showed slight but important differences. The Buffer Method for all species had a higher average predictive probability, while the Standard Method had a higher maximum predictive probability. Most of the values for the area under the curve (AUC) were over 0.8 with the exceptions of Taiwan Barbet (Megalaima nuchalis) and Taiwan Hwamei (Garrulax taewanus), which have recently separated from Indochinese Barbet (Megalaima annamensis) and Chinese Hwamei (Garrulax canorus), and since 2008 and 2006 have been regarded as species endemic to the study area. Kappa values showed good performance for all species using both methods. The Buffer Method, however, resulted in significantly higher sensitivity and accuracy values for all models of species (p<0.05). We conclude that when modeling species distribution including the area where the species was censused along with areas within the minimum movement areas better defines the surrounding areas that might supplement core habitat requirements. Therefore, using the Buffer Method, species surrounding distribution can be obtained which provides a better understanding of the species distributions. Given that distribution size is a key to the conservation of species, we suggest the Buffer Method can be used in conservation planning.