Data from: PaleoENM: applying ecological niche modeling to the fossil record

Ecological niche modeling (ENM) is a quantitative approach to predict
species’ abiotic requirements. It is a correlative technique, requiring
geographically explicit information on species occurrences and the suites
of environmental conditions experienced at each occurrence point. The
output of these models is a set of environmental suitability rules that
can be projected geographically and through time to test biogeographic,
ecologic, and evolutionary hypotheses. Although developed by biologists
and used extensively in the modern, ENM is in its early stages of
application to the deep-time fossil record (hence PaleoENM). In part its
limited use in the fossil record thus far reflects the methodological
challenge of constructing paleoenvironmental layers needed for PaleoENM
analysis, whereas in the modern these layers are available from large
public databases (e.g., WorldClim). This paper provides a contextual and
methodological framework for appropriately applying PaleoENM, including
best practices for developing species occurrence and paleoenvironmental
data sets for PaleoENM analyses.