MaxENT tool for species modelling in India: an overview

MaxENT has been the preferred choice for exploring the patterns and processes related to species distribution and niche models. Across the world, many researchers have used it and here we present the usage trend from the Indian context to identify the different aspects in which it is deployed including the spatial scale, geographical realm, thematic groups, and data sources. Of the 210 papers from India accessed from Web of Science (WoS), only represents 4% of the MaxENT-based papers across the globe. Plants especially trees (24%) and herbs (19%), followed by mammals (16%) while lichens (<1%) as well as corals (<1%) were the most, and least studied taxonomic/thematic groups from India, respectively. This work highlights the important facets of ecological niche modelling / species distribution modelling (ENM/SDM) like the intensity of occurrence data used and various environmental datasets incorporated during the modelling process. This overview provides insights into ENM/SDM-based research works.