Ecological niche models for British Columbia's rare species (Red-, Blue-, and SARA-listed) -- Climate normal and future (2050s & 2080s) distributions

Dataset overview

This dataset represents Maxent ecological niche models for Red-listed, Blue-listed and SARA Schedule 1 species in British Columbia.  Models were calibrated for species' ranges across Turtle Island under climate normal conditions (1991-2020) and projected into future periods (2050s and 2080s) under 3 separate general circulation models.

Spatial layers are available as GeoTIFF (.tif) and PNG (.png) file formats.  Both probabilistic and binary (presence/absence of habitat suitability) for each species are included for current and future climate periods.  This work is part of a larger collaborative project on climate-informed conservation planning in British Columbia.

Methods overview

Species distribution modeling

We developed an updated suite of ecological niche models for rare species under current and future climate scenarios. Ecological niche models attempt to demonstrate the relationships between species and the environments where they occur. We used Maxent (Phillips et al., 2006) to model habitat suitability across Turtle Island for rare species (Red- and Blue-listed species and species-at-risk listed under Schedule 1 of the federal Species at Risk Act in British Columbia.  Gathering species occurrence data from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF.org, 2023), there were 833 species in total with sufficient data points to estimate reliable models.  

Using climate data from Climate NA (Wang et al., 2016; Mahony et al., 2022) and the United States Geological Survey (USGS, 2026), we selected the following environmental predictor variables: mean annual temperature, mean annual precipitation, continentality (mean temp. of warmest month minus mean temp. of coldest month), annual heat-to-moisture index, extreme max temperature over last 30 years, and surficial geology (rock type). Models were used to predict current (1991-2020) and future species distributions at a spatial resolution of 1 km^2. For future projections we used an emissions trajectory adopted by the most recent IPCC report named the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) 2-4.5 (intermediate climate-change scenario; IPCC, 2023).  Projections were made for the 2041-2070 (2050s) and 2071-2100 (2080s) time periods for the following General Circulation models (GCMs): CNRM-ESM2-1, EC-Earth3, and MPI-ESM1-2-HR.

Training and testing data were spilt 70/30.  Probability of suitable habitat was then converted (i.e., thresholded) to binary predictions of presence/absence of habitat suitability where model sensitivity and specificity were balanced (i.e., equal chance of errors of omission and commission).  

This work is part of a larger collaborative effort on climate-informed conservation planning in British Columbia.

File nomenclature:

List_of_species_revised.xlsx:

-Species common and scientific names along with conservation rankings.

data_points_for_SDMs.7z:

-Data used to run Maxent.

lookup_tables_all_taxa_BY_FAMILY_red_blue_SARA_BC.xlsx:

-Lookup tables sorted by families.

%taxon_name%.7z:

-Contains .tif files for tresholded SDMs for each taxonomic group under climate normal (1991-2020, 2050s and 2080s.  Separate GCMS for future periods (as described above).

%taxon_name%_png.7z:

-Contains .png files of SDMs proabilities for each taxonomic group under climate normal (1991-2020, 2050s and 2080s.  Separate GCMS for future periods (as described above).

Metadata

Spatial reference:

XY Coordinate System: NA_Lambert_Azimuthal_Equal_Area
Linear Unit: Meter (1.000000)
Angular Unit: Degree (0.0174532925199433)
false_easting: 0
false_northing: 0
central_meridian: -100
latitude_of_origin: 45
Datum: D_WGS_1984

Extent:

Top  4,276,000.0 m   

Bottom  -3,341,000.0 m 

Left  -4,352,000.0 m   

Right  3,336,000.0 m 

Disclaimer

The University of Alberta (UofA) is furnishing this deliverable "as is". UofA does not provide any warranty of the contents of the deliverable whatsoever, whether express, implied, or statutory, including, but not limited to, any warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose or any warranty that the contents of the deliverable will be error-free.

Funding
  
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of Environment and Climate Change Canada, the Province of British Columbia through the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship and the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy), the BC Conservation Fund, the BC Parks Living Lab for Climate Change and Conservation, and the Wilburforce Foundation.