Researchers and policymakers seeking to assess species' invasion risk often rely on modelling fundamental ecological niches based on climatic variables in the species native range. For freshwater species, however, this has been less successful, potentially due to the lack of climatic layers specific to lake temperatures.
In this publication, researchers developed a new set of lake-specific bioclimatic layers—BioLake—using global estimates from a recent physics-based climate model estimating hourly values of temperature in several strata from 1950 to the present.
Using GBIF-mediated records of 73 current US plant and animal invaders that occur outside North America, the authors tested modelling predictions, calculating scores separately for lake (BioLake) and air (BioClim) temperature-based layers, respectively. They included consistent precipitation layers in both assessments.
Both sets of layers produced models scoring higher than a null model, indicating the predictive power of the methods. The models based on BioClim-layers, however, did yield higher climatic suitability scores than BioLake-layers in known sites of invasion.
Providing a starting point for aquatic invasive species distribution modelling and risk assessment, the study suggests that finer scale lake and river temperature data may improve predictions, and also highlights the need to consider other biotic and human factors as well.