text: Since it is self evident that compilations of species occurrence records cannot cover with any completeness, areas that have received either limited or no sampling, a number of methods have been developed to produce arguably more complete "predictive" or "modelled" distributions for species based on their associated environmental or other preferences (such as availability of food or other habitat requirements); this approach is known as either Environmental niche modelling (ENM) or Species distribution modelling (SDM). Depending on the reliability of the source data and the nature of the models employed (including the scales for which data are available), maps generated from such models may then provide better representations of the "real" biogeographic distributions of either individual species, groups of species, or biodiversity as a whole, however it should also be borne in mind that historic or recent human activities (such as hunting of great whales, or other human-induced exterminations) may have altered present-day species distributions from their potential "full" ecological footprint. Examples of predictive maps produced by niche modelling methods based on either GBIF (terrestrial) or OBIS (marine, plus some freshwater) data are the former Lifemapper project at the University of Kansas (now continued as a part of BiotaPhy) and AquaMaps, which as at 2023 contain modelled distributions for around 200,000 terrestrial, and 33,000 species of teleosts, marine mammals and invertebrates, respectively. One advantage of ENM/SDM is that in addition to showing current (or even past) modelled distributions, insertion of changed parameters such as the anticipated effects of climate change can also be used to show potential changes in species distributions that may occur in the future based on such scenarios.