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Models Incorporating Non-Stationarity Improve Detection of Climate-Driven Range Shifts in Odontocetes
By Nathan Hirtle, Jason J. Roberts, Jessica V. Redfern, Elliott L. Hazen, Debra Palka, William McLellan, Lance Garrison, Susan Barco, Orfhlaith O’Brien, Ester Quintana-Rizzo, Kate Lomac-MacNair, Meghan Rickard, Ann M. Zoidis, Mark Cotter, Amy D. Whitt, Oliver Boisseau, Patrick Halpin, Lesley Thorne
Originally published in Diversity and Distributions in March 2026
Abstract
Climate change is causing distributional shifts in many species globally. Identifying and anticipating these shifts is critical to understanding ecosystem impacts and implementing successful management strategies. Species distribution models (SDMs) are useful tools often employed to describe current and changing habitat use, particularly for marine predators. However, most SDMs assume the statistical relationships between species and their environment are temporally static, which may not be true. We examined how incorporating temporal variability improved SDM performance and estimated range shifts for six odontocete species. We used a high performing model to quantify changes in odontocete distribution over a 24-year period.
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