Range mismatching of interacting species under global change

Aim  We investigate the importance of interacting species for current and potential future species distributions, the influence of their ecological characteristics on projected range shifts when considering or ignoring interacting species, and the consistency of observed relationships across different global change scenarios. Location  Europe. Methods  We developed ecological niche models (generalized linear models) for 36 European butterfly species and their larval host plants based on climate and land-use data. We projected future distributional changes using three integrated global change scenarios for 2080. Observed and projected mismatches in potential butterfly niche space and the niche space of their hosts were first used to assess changing range limitations due to interacting species and then to investigate the importance of different ecological characteristics.