Figure 1:

Importance of species distribution models in climate change research and conservation planning. (A) Increasing use of species distribution models within climate change and conservation research. Data are plotted as the number of publications retrieved from the Web of Science database using search terms ‘species distribution model’ AND ‘climate change’ AND ‘conservation’ relative to the number of publications returned using search terms ‘climate change’ AND ‘conservation’. Data apply to a search performed on 29 July 2015. (B) Primary research objective of species distribution models for marine species as determined by Robinson et al. (2011). Data are derived from a search in ISI Web of Science using search topic = ‘species distribution’ OR ‘ecological niche’ OR ‘habitat preference’ OR ‘environmental preference’ OR ‘bioclimate envelope’ OR ‘bioclimate’ OR ‘environmental niche’ OR ‘habitat suitability’ AND ‘model*’ It should be noted that not all research objectives were mutually exclusive. For example, a future species distribution model projection under various climate change scenarios may feed into a conservation planning application, but in these cases the paper was assigned to an application based on the primary objective of the study. Adapted from Robinson et al. (2011).