Explaining and modeling species communities is more than ever a central goal of ecology. Recently, joint species distribution models (JSDMs), which extend species distribution models (SDMs) by considering correlations among species, have been proposed to improve species community analyses and rare species predictions while potentially inferring species interactions. Here, we illustrate the mathematical links between SDMs and JSDMs and their ecological implications and demonstrate that JSDMs, just like SDMs, cannot separate environmental effects from biotic interactions. We provide a guide to the conditions under which JSDMs are (or are not) preferable to SDMs for species community modeling. More generally, we call for a better uptake and clarification of novel statistical developments in the field of biodiversity modeling.

对物种群落进行解释和建模比以往任何时候都更是生态学的中心目标。近来，已经提出了联合物种分布模型（JSDM），其通过考虑物种之间的相关性来扩展物种分布模型（SDM），以改善物种群落分析和稀有物种预测，同时潜在地推断物种相互作用。在这里，我们说明了SDM和JSDM之间的数学联系及其生态意义，并证明JSDM与SDM一样，无法将环境影响与生物相互作用区分开。我们为在物种群落建模中JSDM比SDM更好（或不推荐）的条件提供了指南。更广泛地说，我们呼吁在生物多样性建模领域更好地吸收和澄清新的统计发展。