Alp Bot 2013 Oct;123(2):41-53
Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine, UMR CNRS-UJF 5553, Univ. Grenoble Alpes, 38041 Grenoble, France; Station Alpine J. Fourier, UMS CNRS-UJF 3370, Univ. Grenoble Alpes, 38041 Grenoble, France.
Species distribution models (SDMs) have been frequently employed to forecast the response of alpine plants to global changes. Efforts to model alpine plant distribution have thus far been primarily based on a correlative approach, in which ecological processes are implicitly addressed through a statistical relationship between observed species occurrences and environmental predictors. Recent evidence, however, highlights the shortcomings of correlative SDMs, especially in alpine landscapes where plant species tend to be decoupled from atmospheric conditions in micro-topographic habitats and are particularly exposed to geomorphic disturbances. Read More