Paleobiogeographic insights gained from ecological niche models: progress and continued challenges

The spatial distribution of individuals within ecological assemblages, and their associated traits and behaviors, are key determinants of ecosystem structure and function. Consequently, determining the spatial distribution of species, and how distributions influence patterns of species richness across ecosystems today and in the past, helps us understand what factors act as fundamental controls on biodiversity. Here, we explore how ecological niche modeling has contributed to understanding the spatiotemporal distribution of past biodiversity, and past ecological and evolutionary processes. We first perform a semi-quantitative literature review to capture studies that applied ecological niche models (ENMs) in the past, identifying 668 studies. We coded each study according to focal taxonomic groups and whether and how the study used fossil evidence, whether it relied on evidence or methods in addition to ENMs, and spatial scale and temporal intervals. We used trends in publication patter..., We conducted an initial search on 15 September 2023 for peer-reviewed articles, written in English, that applied ENMs to past time intervals, using both the Scopus and Web of Science databases with nearly identical search conditions (see Appendix 1 for full search terms). Our search and screening followed the PRISMA protocol for scoping reviews (Tricco et al. 2018). Article metadata was downloaded from each database (Scopus n = 16155, Web of Science n = 15600), and the two datasets were merged and duplicates removed (n = 22656). We screened article titles and abstracts to determine if they (a) projected an ENM to a point in time before 1800 A.D., and/or (b) included fossil occurrences in their ENM. We identified 668 studies that met our criteria, and randomly assigned these to the five authors to gather data on the ENM approaches therein. Data extracted from each article included taxonomic information (taxonomic description and resolution, and the number of taxonomic units analyzed), ti..., , # Paleobiogeographic insights gained from ecological niche models: progress and continued challenges

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.m37pvmd9n](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.m37pvmd9n)

This dataset contains data resulting from a semi-quantitative literature review of peer-reviewed articles that applied ecological niche models to past time intervals. We searched Scopus and Web of Science to find relevant references, performing the search on 15 September 2023 and using search terms as described in Supplementary Appendix 1 (see Zenodo link).

## Description of the data and file structure

We provide two spreadsheets in CSV format. The first spreadsheet is the primary data file and records the literature that resulted from the literature search. The second file contains metadata, including descriptions of the content of each column in the data file.

## Sharing/Access information

Access to the data is also available through Zenodo.

## Code/Software

Access to the full script to analyze t...