How to best threshold and validate stacked species assemblages? Community optimisation might hold the answer

PLEASE NOTE, THESE DATA ARE ALSO REFERRED TO IN TWO OTHER PUBLICATIONS. PLEASE SEE DOI: 10.1111/ddi.12548 AND https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12357 --- The popularity of species distribution models (SDMs) and the associated stacked species distribution models (S‐SDMs), as tools for community ecologists, largely increased in recent years. However, while some consensus was reached about the best methods to threshold and evaluate individual SDMs, little agreement exists on how to best assemble individual SDMs into communities, that is, how to build and assess S‐SDM predictions. Here, we used published data of insects and plants collected within the same study region to test (a) if the most established thresholding methods to optimize single species prediction are also the best choice for predicting species assemblage composition, or if community‐based thresholding can be a better alternative, and (b) whether the optimal thresholding method depends on taxa, prevalence distribution and/or sp...