On the relationship between habitat suitability and population abundance under different dispersal scenarios

Recent studies based on niche modeling to estimate the distribution of species have provided evidence that the abundance of a species decreases as the distance to the centroid of the climatic niche of the species increases. This empirical relationship is determined using correlative models that relate the presence/absence of a species with abiotic factors under the assumption that species are in equilibrium with its environment, but without taking into account population processes explicitly. The lack of a mechanism that explicitly relates population processes to the niche hinders to interpret results and obtain general conclusions. In this paper the relationship between habitat suitability and abundance under different dispersal scenarios is explored using a virtual species. A clear correlation between abundance and habitat suitability in scenarios without dispersal was found, on the other hand, this correlation decreased as the proportion of individuals who are dispersed increases. These results support the idea that there is a relationship between habitat suitability and abundances, however, they also show that this relationship is modulated by dispersal. All Rights Reserved (C) 2016 Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Instituto de Biologia.