Understanding how species respond to environmental changes is crucial for biodiversity conservation, climate adaptation, and ecosystem management.
The Virtual Suitability Cube offers a powerful, scalable framework for analysing species suitability across both time and space, helping researchers track ecological trends and inform conservation strategies.

By integrating environmental data with virtual species, the Virtual Suitability Cube enables the monitoring of multiple species at the same location over different periods—or vice versa. This structured approach simplifies ecological assessments, allowing for flexible analysis through slicing, aggregation, and advanced modelling. The cube’s adaptability also makes it suitable for expanding beyond species suitability to include factors such as habitat connectivity, species interactions, and environmental pressures.

To enhance real-world applications, efforts are underway to apply this framework to actual species data. Addressing common challenges such as sampling bias, researchers are working to refine suitability maps and improve the accuracy of species distribution predictions.

The Virtual Suitability Cube is now accessible on the Horizon Results Platform, providing an open and transparent resource for researchers and decision-makers working on biodiversity conservation and ecological monitoring.