The role of climate, biotic interactions and dispersal limitations in determining the distribution of species amid global warming

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With rapid climate change, we expect species to shift their geographic distribution. Possible future scenarios include geographic range expansion, range contractions as well as local extirpation and species-wide extinctions. Which of these scenarios is more likely will vary among species, and we lack species-specific biological knowledge enabling predictions of future distributions. While climate determines the geographical extent over which species are distributed (a.k.a. range), biotic interactions and dispersal limitations can determine which proportion of the potential range is occupied. Current models of species distributions rely heavily on environmental affinities, but often do not account for factors such as biotic interactions and dispersal limitations. As such, these models often fail to predict accurately species distributions.