Niche Modeling and Geographic Range Predictions in the Marine Environment Using a Machine-learning Algorithm

Abstract

Biological communities are changing drastically in response to global climate change (Walther et al., 2002), changes in use by human populations (Krishtalka et al., 2002), and introduction of exotic species (Carlton, 1996; Enserink, 1999). To study the impact of such changes in the marine environment, biologists require a detailed understanding of the diversity and distributions of marine organisms on macroscopic scales, such as across entire ocean basins, in order to improve understanding of the actual distributions of species, and gain an overall impression of the potential community structures that exist in particular habitats. A major obstacle to such an improved understanding is the fact that existing biodiversity records are both incomplete and idiosyncratic, consisting of museum