Critical shifts on spatial traits and the risk of extinction of Andean anurans: an assessment of the combined effects of climate and land-use change in Colombia

Abstract

Climate and land-use change, raise significant threats to biodiversity, affecting species ranges worldwide. Both factors operate on different scales, so including spatial traits that allow them to be appropriately evaluated is relevant to the early identification of extinction risks. We aimed to evaluate the potential effects of climate and land-use change on the extent of suitable habitat of a set of species of Andean anurans; to assess the loss of the area of occupancy (AOO); and to estimate the risk of extinction according to the percentages of loss of the extent of suitable habitat and AOO. We modeled the current and future potential distributions of 30 endemic anurans from the Colombian Andes. We calculated the change in current potential distributional ranges and in the extent of suitable habitat under two climatic regimes and land-use scenarios. We quantified the AOO using the 2×2km grid method and assessed its loss based on habitat availability in the combined scenarios. We used the percentage losses of the extent of suitable habitat and AOO to estimate and compare the extinction risks according to IUCN criteria. We found that climate and land-use change will cause a relative loss of 63.4 % to 79.4 % of the current extent of suitable habitat and 49.6 % to 72.6 % of AOO of the Andean anurans by the year 2050. The loss of AOO made it possible to detect twice as many species at high risk of extinction than the loss of the extent of suitable habitat. The effects of climate change and habitat loss could lead to potential extinction events in Andean frogs. Extent of suitable habitat, and especially the area of occupancy are appropriate spatial traits that could be used to assess extinction risks in species sensitive to local habitat modification by climate change and land-use change.