Distributional modeling of cattails across North America with emphasis on the Northern Great Plains

North America species of cattails including Typha latifolia, Typha angustifolia , and Typha domigensis , are an important component of marsh ecosystems and are often dominant among emergent wetland vegetation. Typha ssp are considered invasive due of their ability to take over marshes and freshwater environment and form dense, nearly monotypic, stands of vegetation. For decades many of Typha physiological characteristics contributing to cattails expansion (size, growth habitat characteristics, reproduction mode, etc) have been studied and explored. Very few studies, however, have been conducted that investigate the actual extent of their distributions across the continent and the primary ecological drivers for their spatial distributions. In this study we model, at a continental and regional scale, the spatial distributions of three species of cattails ( T. latifolia, T. angustifolia , and T. domingensis ) across North America using maximum entropy and evaluate each of the environmental input layers for their respective contributions to the overall spatial distributions of each species. Differences were observed in Typha spp. predicted distribution at continental and regional scale. Temperature, solar radiation, and ground frost frequency were primary drivers of Typha distributions. The accuracy of the predicted distributions, and relative impact of environmental input variables, will depend on the relevance on environmental variables.