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Species distribution models (SDMs) are an important tool in biogeography and phylogeography studies, that most often require explicit absence information to adequately model the environmental space on which species can potentially inhabit. In the so-called background pseudo-absences approach, absence locations are simulated in order to obtain a complete sample of the environment. Whilst the commonest approach is random sampling of the entire study region, in its multiple variants, its performance may not be optimal, and the method of generation of pseudo-absences is known to have a significant influence on the results obtained. Here, we compare a suite of classic (random sampling) and novel methods for pseudo-absence data generation and propose a generalizable three-step method combining environmental profiling with a new technique for background extent restriction. To this aim, we consider …