Ecological Niche Modelling (ENM) is a tool widely used in ecology to determine environmental conditions and the potential distribution of species. In this article we assess the potential distribution, tolerance limits and similarity niche of macroalgae epiphytes and hosts from the Cuba marine shelf. Using different methods (BIOCLIM, Gower, Maxent and SVM) we have modelled the niche for each species. The final prediction map of distribution was made using the ensemble prediction technique. The similarity of ENMs was quantified by Schoener D and Hellinger I distance. The predictive power of all models was reasonable, since the values of the area under the curve (AUC) were greater than 0.9. The host macroalgae most closely related to the spatial distribution pattern of potential abundance of epiphytic macroalgae are Stypopodium zonale (Kendall correlation, r² = 0.886) and Digenea simplex (Kendall correlation, r² = 0.777). Environmental variables that contributed mostly (30 %) to the ecological niche models were: the average maximum salinity per year (35.5−36 PSU); the average minimum flow velocity per year (0.2 m·s⁻¹) and the average minimum light at ground level per year (10−60 E·m⁻²·yr⁻¹). The results show that epiphytic macroalgae and their most common hosts are generalist species (niche width 0.8) with high overlap in their niche (Schoener D > 0.7; Hellinger I distance = I > 0.6).

生态位生态模型（ENM）是一种广泛用于生态学中的工具，用于确定环境条件和物种的潜在分布。在本文中，我们评估了来自古巴海洋架子的大型藻类附生植物和寄主的潜在分布，耐受限度和相似性。我们使用不同的方法（BIOCLIM，Gower，Maxent和SVM）对每种物种的生态位建模。使用集合预测技术制作了最终的分布预测图。ENM的相似性通过Schoener D和Hellinger I距离进行量化。所有模型的预测能力都是合理的，因为曲线下面积（AUC）的值大于0.9。与附生大型藻类的潜在丰度的空间分布模式最密切相关的寄主大型藻类是拟南芥（Kendall相关，r ²  = 0.886）和单基因Digenea（Kendall相关，r ²  = 0.777）。对生态位模型贡献最大的环境变量（30％）是：每年平均最大盐度（35.5-36 PSU）；每年平均最小流速（0.2 m·s ^-1）和每年地面平均最小光（10-60 E·m ^-2 ·yr ^-1）。结果表明，附生大型藻类及其最常见的寄主是通体物种（生态位宽度0.8），其生态位高度重叠（Schoener D> 0.7； Hellinger I距离= I> 0.6）。