Climate-driven decreases in aspen’s distribution and opportunities for future expansion across the Southern Rocky Mountains

Overview
This dataset consists of spatially explicit predictions of aspen habitat suitability made in support of the study \"Climate-driven decreases in aspen’s distribution and opportunities for future expansion across the Southern Rocky Mountains\". Below, we outlined the aims, methods, results, and conclusions of this study.

Aim
Species distribution models (SDMs) are widely used to understand how climate change may influence habitat suitability and inform climate-adaptive forest management. However, SDMs are often of limited use for understanding the range expansion potential for tree species, which often exhibit slow migration rates. Here, we integrate remotely sensed data products into an SDM to generate predictions of range shifts for quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx), a keystone species in North American forests.

Methods
We related remotely sensed maps of aspen presence with climate, topographic, and soil predictors to generate an ensemble SDM. We then incorporated ..., , , # Climate-driven decreases in aspen’s distribution and opportunities for future expansion across the Southern Rocky Mountains

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.t76hdr88v](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.t76hdr88v)

## Description of the project

This archive contains predictions of habitat suitability for aspen across the Southern Rocky Mountain Ecoregion. Predictions are available for the historical period (1981-2010) and three future periods (2011-2040, 2041-2070, 2071-2100). Future predictions are available under two scenarios (i.e., Shared Socioeconomic Pathways; SSPs) generated under CMIP6, SSP2-4.5, and SSP5-8.5. SSP2-4.5 describes an intermediate scenario characterized by moderate increases in emissions through 2040, followed by a decline, while SSP5-8.5 describes a more extreme situation where emissions increase through 2100.

## Files

### Predictions.zip

A zipped file containing the predictions of habitat suitability for aspen across the Southern Rocky Mountain Ecoregion. This co...,