I have some occurrence points from my waypoints data (at least 5 points per species) but they occur in less than 1 km area. I wonder whether I could be extrapolated, though I understand there may be several limitations from prediction that resulted from it.
Presumably, please correct if I am wrong, you study a small organism and its distribution over an area of one or a few km2. Anything else will not do.
Your environmental predictor variables should have a much finer resolution than 1 km2 (e.g. land cover and/or elevation at 10 m2); your SDM beyond the 1 km2 for which you have occurrence data, will be valid only as far the environmental space in the adjacent km2 falls within the range of the km2 of your occurrence data (within elevation range; no new cover types). For back-up for my statements (see attached).
Article Fine resolution distribution modelling of endemics in Majell...
Article Where the bears roam in Majella National Park, Italy
I agree with Hein.
You need data in topographic resolution and update as your species data are (based on the period that have been collected).
If a fine-scale map of the habitats you work with are available, then of course you can map your wayponts with occurrences. After that, depending on the data structure you have, some predicitions can be made about their didtributions, at least qualitatively.
I also agree with Hein. The important aspect is your environmental data. It is essentially the limiting factor since all data set resolutions must match - the data with the largest cell size (e.g. climate variables at 1km x 1km) will be the highest resolution your models will be able to predict. You can resample your climate data to 10 meters, but there will be no gain in information. These are issues of scale (grain and extent) that species modelers deal with on a daily basis. The literature is rife with examples and suggestions. A quick search on Google scholar will help you decide which direction to take. Hope that helps.
I agree with Matt and Hein above. These are important points to keep in mind.
A few books that would be helpful to you are:
Franklin, J. 2010. Mapping Species Distributions: Spatial inference and prediction. Cambridge University Press.
Drew, C.A., Y. F. Wiersma, and F. Huettmann. 2011. Predictive species and habitat modeling in landscape ecology: concepts and applications. Springer.
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