Benefits and drawbacks of two modelling approaches for a generalist carnivore: can models predict where Wile E. Coyote will turn up next?

Wildlife ecologists frequently make use of limited information on locations of a species of interest in combination with readily available GIS data to build models to predict space use. In addition to a wide range of statistical data models that are more commonly used, machine learning approaches provide another means to develop predictive spatial models. However, comparison of output from these two families of models for the same data set is not often carried out. It is important that wildlife managers understand the pitfalls and limitations when a single set of models is used with limited GIS data to try to predict and understand species distribution. To illustrate this, we carried out two sets of models (generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs) and boosted regression trees (BRTs)) to predict geographic occupancy of the eastern coyote (Canis latrans) on the island of Newfoundland, Canada. This exercise is illustrative of common spatial questions in wildlife research and management. Our results show that models vary depending on the approach (GLMM vs. BRT) and that, overall, BRT had higher predictive ability. Although machine learning has been criticized because it is not explicitly hypothesis-driven, it has been used in other areas of spatial modelling with success. Here, we demonstrate that it may be a useful approach for predicting wildlife space use and to generate hypotheses when data are limited. The results of this comparison can help to improve other models for species distributions and also guide future sampling and modelling initiatives.