Biological Diversity and Climate Change Through Ecological Niche Modeling

Global climate change is reshaping biodiversity by altering temperature and precipitation regimes, habitat suitability, species interactions, and ecosystem functioning. These changes can produce latitudinal and altitudinal range shifts, habitat contraction, local population losses, novel climatic conditions, and increased extinction risk. Ecological niche models (ENMs) and species distribution models (SDMs) are widely used to estimate current distributions and project potential changes under future climate scenarios. Recent research has expanded from single-species projections toward analyses of niche stability, expansion, contraction, climate refugia, community composition, ecosystem services, and conservation prioritization. However, uncertainty remains concerning model transferability, data quality, dispersal limitations, biotic interactions, land-use change, and the reliability of climate projections across spatial and temporal scales. Further integration of correlative, mechanistic, community-level, and comparative approaches is needed to improve the use of biodiversity models in conservation planning and environmental decision-making.

This Research Topic aims to advance understanding of how climate change may influence biological diversity through ecological niche modeling, species distribution modeling, and related approaches. It will bring together studies examining changes in the geographic distribution and environmental requirements of species, communities, ecosystems, and regions under present and projected climate conditions. Particular attention will be given to threatened, endemic, restricted-range, economically important, and bioculturally significant taxa, as well as ecosystems that support high levels of biodiversity. The Research Topic will also assess how modeling outputs can inform the identification of climate refugia, conservation priorities, protected-area management, ecological restoration, ecosystem-service protection, and climate adaptation policies.

To gather further insights into biodiversity responses to climate change across different taxonomic groups, geographic regions, spatial scales, and temporal periods, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:

-Projections of species distribution changes under alternative climate scenarios
-Ecological niche dynamics, including niche stability, contraction, expansion, and displacement
-Identification of climate refugia and priority areas for biodiversity conservation
-Climate-change impacts on threatened, endemic, and restricted-range species
-Community-level and ecosystem-level responses to changing climatic conditions
-Effects of climate change on species interactions, migration, phenology, and ecological networks
-Integration of niche models with land-use change, habitat fragmentation, vegetation cover, and connectivity
-Impacts on ecosystem services associated with biodiversity
-Modeling biodiversity responses in arid zones, high-mountain ecosystems, tropical and cloud forests, wetlands, islands, and other vulnerable environments
-Comparison of correlative, mechanistic, integrative, and joint species distribution models
-Applications of MaxEnt, Random Forest, generalized linear models, and other modeling techniques
-Improving model accuracy, calibration, transferability, uncertainty assessment, and interpretability
-Use of modeling outputs in protected-area planning, ecological restoration, and conservation policy
-Comparative analyses across species, regions, environmental gradients, or climate scenarios
-Reproducible workflows, data integration, and decision-support tools for biodiversity management

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Ecological niche modeling, Climate change, Biodiversity conservation, Species distribution models, Habitat suitability, Endemic species, Climate refugia

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.