Paleo-grounded biodiversity foundation models for long-horizon species distribution forecasting

Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, vol. 14

Abstract

Global biodiversity change demands decision-ready forecasts that integrate heterogeneous biological and environmental data across space and time. Current species distribution models (SDMs) support conservation tasks, but most remain trained and evaluated as static snapshots, whereas restoration trajectories, range shifts, and ecological baselines are shaped by dispersal limitation, disturbance, demographic inertia, and historical legacies. We argue that the next step is a paleo-grounded biodiversity foundation model: a multimodal model that learns transferable species-environment representations from modern occurrences, remote sensing, land cover, climate, and topography, and then uses paleoecological archives to test and adapt these representations across centuries to millennia. We outline two complementary temporal-transfer strategies. A conservative route trains a modern species-environment encoder and applies it to paleoclimate and paleo-land-cover slices, using pollen and sedimentary ancient DNA either for independent validation or for lightweight proxy-aware adaptation. A more ambitious route learns latent ecological dynamics from irregular, uncertainty-dated paleo time series and rolls these dynamics out across gridded landscapes. This perspective on future SDMs emphasizes proxy observation models, disequilibrium-aware evaluation, transparent uncertainty, and decision-facing outputs. By linking AI-based representation learning with paleo archives, such models could move SDMs from static suitability maps toward time-stamped, testable trajectories for biodiversity synthesis, conservation planning, and restoration monitoring.

Authors 25

1. Ulrike Herzschuh corresponding

   Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung · University of Potsdam

   Affiliation as printed

   Polar Terrestrial Environmental Systems, Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research

   University of Potsdam

2. Laura Schild

   Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung

   Affiliation as printed

   Polar Terrestrial Environmental Systems, Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research

3. Luca Zsofia Farkas

   Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung

   Affiliation as printed

   Polar Terrestrial Environmental Systems, Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research

4. Danu Caus

   Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon

   Affiliation as printed

   Helmholtz AI

   Helmholtz Centre Hereon

5. Jie Xia

   Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung

   Affiliation as printed

   Polar Terrestrial Environmental Systems, Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research

6. Tobias Weigel

   Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon

   Affiliation as printed

   Helmholtz AI

   Helmholtz Centre Hereon

7. Jürgen Dammers Aachen Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics

   RWTH Aachen University · Forschungszentrum Jülich · Jülich Aachen Research Alliance

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) Aachen University

   Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-4), Forschungszentrum Jülich

   Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA) – CSD – Center for Simulation and Data Science

8. Begüm Demir

   Technische Universität Berlin · Berlin Institute for the Foundations of Learning and Data

   Affiliation as printed

   BIFOLD - Berlin Institute for the Foundations of Learning and Data

   Technische Universität Berlin

9. Maryna Golivets

   Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research

   Affiliation as printed

   Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-Umweltforschungszentrum (UFZ)

10. Vipul Gupta

    Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon

    Affiliation as printed

    Helmholtz Centre Hereon

11. Oskar Hagen

    Goethe University Frankfurt · Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre

    Affiliation as printed

    Computational Integrative Biodiversity, Goethe University Frankfurt

    Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre

12. Florian Jansen

    University of Rostock

    Affiliation as printed

    Landscape Ecology and Site Evaluation, University of Rostock

13. Taimur Khan

    Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research

    Affiliation as printed

    Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-Umweltforschungszentrum (UFZ)

14. Andrew M. Kramer

    University of South Florida

    Affiliation as printed

    Department of Integrative Biology, University of South Florida

15. Ingolf Kühn

    Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research · Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg · German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research

    Affiliation as printed

    German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig

    Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-Umweltforschungszentrum (UFZ)

    Institute for Biology, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg

16. Martino Mensio

    Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research

    Affiliation as printed

    Nederlandse Organisatie voor toegepast-natuurwetenschappelijk onderzoek (TNO)

17. Diego Nieto‐Lugilde

    University of Córdoba · University of Córdoba

    Affiliation as printed

    Departamento de Botánica, Universidad de Córdoba

18. Claudio Persello

    University of Twente · International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation

    Affiliation as printed

    Faculty of Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation (ITC), University of Twente

19. Benhood Rasti

    Technische Universität Berlin

    Affiliation as printed

    Technische Universität Berlin

20. Juliano Sarmento Cabral

    University of Bonn · University of Birmingham

    Affiliation as printed

    College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham

    Department of Plant Biodiversity, University of Bonn

21. Boris Schröder

    Technische Universität Berlin

    Affiliation as printed

    Technische Universität Berlin

22. Jens‐Christian Svenning

    Aarhus University

    Affiliation as printed

    Center for Ecological Dynamics in a Novel Biosphere (ECONOVO), Department of Biology, Aarhus University

23. Franziska Tanneberger

    Universität Greifswald

    Affiliation as printed

    Experimental Plant Ecology, University of Greifswald

24. Franziska Taubert

    Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research

    Affiliation as printed

    Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-Umweltforschungszentrum (UFZ)

25. Damaris Zurell

    University of Potsdam

    Affiliation as printed

    University of Potsdam