How citizen science could improve species distribution models and their independent assessment

作者：Florence Matutini, Jacques Baudry, Guillaume Pain, Sineau Morgane, Joséphine Pithon · 发表于：Ecology and Evolution · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.1002/ece3.7210 · 被引用次数：63 · 研究领域：Species Distribution and Climate Change、Wildlife Ecology and Conservation、Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies

Species distribution models (SDM) have been increasingly developed in recent years, but their validity is questioned. Their assessment can be improved by the use of independent data, but this can be difficult to obtain and prohibitive to collect. Standardized data from citizen science may be used to establish external evaluation datasets and to improve SDM validation and applicability.We used opportunistic presence-only data along with presence-absence data from a standardized citizen science program to establish and assess habitat suitability maps for 9 species of amphibian in western France. We assessed Generalized Additive and Random Forest Models' performance by (1) cross-validation using 30% of the opportunistic dataset used to calibrate the model or (2) external validation using different independent datasets derived from citizen science monitoring. We tested the effects of applying different combinations of filters to the citizen data and of complementing it with additional standardized fieldwork.Cross-validation with an internal evaluation dataset resulted in higher AUC (Area Under the receiver operating Curve) than external evaluation causing overestimation of model accuracy and did not select the same models; models integrating sampling effort performed better with external validation. AUC, specificity, and sensitivity of models calculated with different filtered external datasets differed for some species. However, for most species, complementary fieldwork was not ...