Visualizing environmental correlates of species geographical range limits

John T. Bauer, A. Townsend Peterson

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

Although many studies have treated aspects of species geographical distributions and numerous approaches exist for understanding overall ecological correlates of distributions, software tools for exploring environmental correlates of distributional limits are relatively few. We focused on the challenge of understanding spatial correlates of distributional limits, and developed an extension to ARCVIEW that provides a simple, univariate test and visualization for such explorations. The 'Boundary U-test' seeks out environmental variables that show steep gradients associated with user-defined boundaries across geography. We illustrate the tool and its applications with an example of the likely historical distribution of Mexican wolf (Canis lupus).

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)275-278
Number of pages4
JournalDiversity and Distributions
Volume11
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 2005
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Canis lupus
  • Distribution
  • Environmental correlates
  • Range limits

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

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