ABSTRACT Aim Despite the recognised importance of biotic interactions and dispersal in shaping species distributions, their incorporation in frameworks that investigate species distributions is often overlooked. We aim to assess how biotic interactions and dispersal have been incorporated into modelling frameworks within freshwater ecosystems and to identify trends, limitations, and opportunities for advancing these approaches. Location Global. Methods We systematically reviewed modelling approaches incorporating biotic interactions, dispersal, or both. We analysed patterns of identified studies regarding ecosystem type, biological data used, model class, representation of dendritic structures, spatial extent, type of biological interactions, and organism group studied. Results We identified 140 studies that incorporated dispersal and/or biotic interactions to investigate the distributions of freshwater species. While biotic interactions and dispersal have been increasingly incorporated into modelling approaches in freshwaters, their simultaneous inclusion remained uncommon. Correlative models were favoured over mechanistic approaches, likely due to their lower requirements for data size and computational power. Studies were disproportionately concentrated in the Global North, with a notable lack of global‐scale analyses. Additionally, we observed diverse trends across model classes, mechanisms incorporated, representation of dispersal and biological interactions, spatial structures, species status, and spatial scale of studies. Limited data availability, challenges in model development, and computational constraints often restrict the development of more complex models capable of integrating multiple processes, particularly at broader scales. Main Conclusions Our review underscores the opportunities to integrate biotic interactions and dispersal more comprehensively into modelling approaches for species distributions in freshwaters, acknowledging the importance of these processes in ecosystems undergoing rapid environmental changes. International collaborations are essential to overcome data limitations and establish robust databases from a metacommunity perspective. Increasing ecological realism in modelling frameworks, pursued when it demonstrably improves modelling outcomes, might enable the development of models that provide a deeper understanding of species distributions across diverse freshwater habitats.
Medina‐Madariaga et al. (Sun,) studied this question.