Abstract
Although the impacts of climate change on biodiversity are increasing worldwide, few studies have attempted to forecast these impacts on Amazon Tropical Forest. In this study, we estimated the impact of climate change on Amazonian avian assemblages considering range shifts, species loss, vulnerability of ecosystem functioning, future effectiveness of current protected areas and potential climatically stable areas for conservation actions. Species distribution modelling based on two algorithms and three different scenarios of climate change was used to forecast 501 avian species, organized on main ecosystem functions (frugivores, insectivores and nectarivores) for years 2050 and 2070. Considering the entire study area, we estimated that between 4 and 19% of the species will find no suitable habitat. Inside the currently established protected areas, species loss could be over 70%. Our results suggest that frugivores are the most sensitive guild, which could bring consequences on seed dispersal functions and on natural regeneration. Moreover, we identified the western and northern parts of the study area as climatically stable. Climate change will potentially affect avian assemblages in southeastern Amazonia with detrimental consequences to their ecosystem functions. Information provided here is essential to conservation practitioners and decision makers to help on planning their actions.
Highlights
The average global surface temperature has increased by approximately 0.8 ̊C during the last century and is expected to continue increasing [1]
Through our SDMs we show that avian assemblage from SE Amazonia will be potentially strongly affected by climate change in the near future, even under the most optimistic scenario
We believe that our consensus maps are robust in the projections of possible distribution/composition changes of avian assemblages in the study area. Another important point is the idiosyncratic response of each species to climate change, stressing out that different species may not react in the same way and for this reason, we focus on the general inferred patterns for guild groups
Summary
The average global surface temperature has increased by approximately 0.8 ̊C during the last century and is expected to continue increasing [1]. Until now, habitat loss and fragmentation have represented the highest threat to biodiversity [5,6], some studies have suggested that climate change is likely to outweigh habitat loss as a global threat in the coming decades [7]. Even though climate change constitutes its own set of risks, it may interact with habitat loss and increase shifts in species distributions, extinctions, and compositional changes in communities [8].
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