Optimization of species distribution models using a genetic algorithm for simulating climate change effects on Zagros forests in Iran

Species distribution models (SDMs) are efficient tools for modeling species geographic distribution under climate change scenarios. Due to differences among predictions of these models, their results are combined using consensus methods to form an ensemble model. This paper provides an optimal combination of the common SDMs according to accuracy and correlation to model the climatic suitability of Quercus brantii in the west of Iran and projects it into the years 2050 and 2070. This is done using 1000 samples of the species presence and absence, 4 bioclimatic variables related to temperature and precipitation, and 10 modeling algorithms. An ensemble combination of Global Climate Models (GCMs) and 4 optimistic and pessimistic greenhouse-gas emissions scenarios were utilized to identify the climatically suitable areas in the years 2050 and 2070. These models were combined using three common statistics, including mean, median, and weighted mean. The predictive accuracies of the single-models and the consensus methods were assessed using the area under the curve (AUC) metric that validates the acceptable performance of the 9 out of the 10 models studied. Applying the genetic algorithm, the best combination of the models was selected including 4 algorithms with accuracy and correlation equal 0.95 and 0.30 respectively. The results show that the Random Forest (RF) model causes less error in the ensemble model and also compensates other models' errors more. Projections into the years 2050 and 2070 showed that in both time periods and under all scenarios, changes will occur in the spatial distribution of this species, and the most severe one would be a 55.6% loss under the most pessimistic scenario in 2070.