Abstract
Phylogeographic patterns of endemic species are critical keys to understand its adaptation to future climate change. Herein, based on chloroplast DNA, we analyzed the genetic diversity of two endemic and endangered tree species from the Brazilian savanna and Atlantic forest (Eremanthus erythropappus and Eremanthus incanus). We also applied the climate-based ecological niche modeling (ENM) to evaluate the impact of the Quaternary climate (last glacial maximum ~ 21 kyr BP (thousand years before present) and Mid-Holocene ~ 6 kyr BP) on the current haplotype distribution. Moreover, we modeled the potential effect of future climate change on the species distribution in 2070 for the most optimistic and pessimistic scenarios. One primer/enzyme combination (SFM/HinfI) revealed polymorphism with very low haplotype diversity, showing only three different haplotypes. The haplotype 1 has very low frequency and it was classified as the oldest, diverging from six mutations from the haplotypes 2 and 3. The E. erythropappus populations are structured and differ genetically according to the areas of occurrence. In general, the populations located in the north region are genetically different from those located in the center-south. No genetic structuring was observed for E. incanus. The ENM revealed a large distribution during the past and a severe decrease in geographic distribution of E. erythropappus and E. incanus from the LGM until present and predicts a drastic decline in suitable areas in the future. This reduction may homogenize the genetic diversity and compromise a relevant role of these species on infiltration of groundwater.
Highlights
Future climate change will create several impacts on biodiversity (Ravenscroft et al 2015)
We found that haplotype 3 was the most common (95.2%) in E. erythropappus and haplotype 2 was the most common for E. incanus (90%)
We did not find haplotype 2 in E. erythropappus populations located in the center-south region, but it appears with a frequency of 11% in the northern populations (Fig. S2)
Summary
Future climate change will create several impacts on biodiversity (Ravenscroft et al 2015). Several studies addressing the impacts of climate change has been developed mainly focusing the loss of species diversity. A few studies have evaluated the influence of climate on the genetic characteristics of populations. Past bioclimatic scenarios models have shown that current species distribution follows a pattern of gene sharing since the Late Glacial Period (Collevatti et al 2013). The cyclical climatic changes during the Quaternary period had a complex impact on the population dynamics of tropical, Neosavanna species, influencing their current species distribution and genetic diversity (Collevatti et al 2015). While some species have shown resilience facing new climatic conditions (Kremer et al 2012), future climate change will influence the species’ genetic diversity and adaptation to new environmental conditions (Lima et al 2017)
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