Aplicación de modelos de nicho ecológico para la localización de seis plantas amenazadas en el Parque Natural de Els Ports (noreste de la Península Ibérica)

Abstract

The precise location of threatened species’ populations is essential to evaluate their conservation status. In this study, we explore the usefulness of ecological niche models to find six rare and threatened plant species within the Natural Park Els Ports (northeast of Iberian Peninsula). Habitat suitability models were generated with the algorithm Maxent and transformed into binary (presence/absence) using a decision threshold. The models were validated by leave-one-out cross-validation. The sampling was directed to the areas with the highest number of predicted presences. The predictive ability was evaluated by calculating the values of sensitivity, specificity and accuracy with data from field sampling. 28 new occurrence data from five different species were found, the 89% of which were predicted by the models. This has enabled us to acquire a better knowledge of the range and real occupancy area of these species within the Natural Park. The results show that models can be useful in prioritizing the sampling efforts of threatened species with few records, especially for those with small geographic ranges and limited environmental tolerance.