California Institute for Energy and Environment (CIEE)

There is substantial evidence that climate change is affecting ecosystems worldwide. California is no exception. With insights from historic climate change and subsequent species’ responses, scientists are developing refined tools to evaluate how species change may continue in the future and what impact this may have on biodiversity and conservation. Bioclimatic envelope modeling is one approach to modeling species distribution. However, it has many shortcomings by neglecting to account for individualistic species response or inter specific competition. Furthermore, bioclimatic envelope models do not account for species dispersal constraints or those imposed by disturbances such as land use change or fire. BioMove is a novel spatially explicit, dynamic species modeling approach developed to address these issues. It simulates a target species in a dynamic landscape, competing with a target species in competition with one or many PFTs. It combines various sub-models to integrate competition, dispersal and disturbance. It has important application potential for threatened species assessment, management coordination and decision support, invasive species modeling and other advanced climate change research.