Multiresponse algorithms for community-level modeling: review of theory, applications, and comparison to species distribution models

1.Community-level models (CLMs) consider multiple, co-occurring species in model fitting and are lesser known alternatives to species distribution models (SDMs) for analyzing and predicting biodiversity patterns. CLMs simultaneously model multiple species, including rare species, while reducing overfitting and implicitly considering drivers of co-occurrence. Many CLMs are direct extensions of well-known SDMs and therefore should be familiar to ecologists. However, CLMs remain underutilized, and there have been few tests of their potential benefits and no systematic reviews of their assumptions and implementations. Here we review this emerging field and provide examples in R to fit common CLMs. Our goal is to introduce CLMs to a broader audience, and discuss their attributes, benefits, and limitations relative to SDMs.

2.We review i) statistical implementations and applications of CLMs, ii) their advantages and limitations, and iii) comparative analyses of CLMs and SDMs. We also sugge...