Information Center for the Environment

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.