BayCEER Workshop 2025

Comparing Correlative and Process-Based Species Distribution Models for European Tree Species under Current and Future Climate Scenarios

P 3 in Posters

Climate change poses challenges for forestry. One of these challenges is the selection of tree species that are ecologically resilient and economically productive under future climates. The Bavarian State Institute for Forestry (LWF) provides decision support for tree species selection via climate suitability maps for tree species based on a correlative species distribution models (SDMs) and expert input in the Bavarian Site Information System (BaSIS). This decision support system is already widely used by foresters in Bavaria; however, recent model evaluation studies suggest that correlative SDMs may not reliably predict the suitability of future climates if these are different from the present-day climate data used to fit the correlative SDMs in terms of range and correlations of climate variables. The TTR.PGM, a process-based SDM based on a physiological plant growth model has been shown to provide more reliable predictions of climatic suitability under such novel climate conditions. In this study, we therefore model the climatic suitability of six tree species in Bavaria under ambient and future climatic conditions using the process-based TTR.PGM and compare the results with the correlative SDM used in BaSIS. Our results will help to evaluate the robustness of the BaSIS recommendations to different suitability modelling approaches.

Keywords: Species distribution models, process-based models, mechanistic models, correlative models, climate change, forestry, habitat suitability, model comparison