Modelling and validation of the spatial distribution of suitable habitats for the recruitment of invasive plants on climate change scenarios: An approach from the regeneration niche

The regeneration niche concept states that plant species only occur in habitats where the environmental conditions allow their recruitment. This study focuses on this concept and proposes a novel approach for modelling and experimentally validating the distribution of suitable habitats for the recruitment of invasive plants under the current and future climate. The biological invasion of the Peruvian peppertree (Schinus molle) in Mexico is used as practical example. The values of eight bioclimatic variables associated to sites in which young, naturally established seedlings and saplings were detected were used to model the current distribution of recruitment habitats. A machine-learning algorithm of maximum entropy (MaxEnt) was used to calibrate the model and its output indicated the distribution of occurrence probabilities of young peppertrees in Mexico under the current climate. This model was projected on climate change scenarios predicted for the middle of this century, which indicated that the cover of suitable recruitment habitats for this invasive species will shrink. To validate these predictions, field experiments were performed at three sites where the model predicted reduced occurrence probabilities of young peppertrees. In these experiments, emergence and survival rates of peppertree seedlings were assessed under the current climate and under simulated climate change conditions. As seedling emergence and survival rates were lower under simulated climate change conditions, the experiments validated the model predictions. These results supported our proposal, which combines modelling and experimental approaches to make accurate and valid predictions about the distribution of suitable recruitment habitats for invasive plants in a warmer and drier world. [Display omitted] •The regeneration niche is a key concept to predict the distribution of invasive plants.•Species distribution models must be calibrated with data of seedlings and saplings.•Model extrapolations on climate change scenarios must be validated with field experiments.•Combining modelling and experiments leads to better predictions of species distributions.