Geographic shifts in climatically suitable areas and loss of genetic variability under climate change in a neotropical tree

Abstract

Background Many species are expected to suffer a strong shift in geographic ranges due to climate changes in the next fifty years, depending on their ecological tolerance and current demographical parameters, which were in turn shaped by their evolutionary history. These shifts may also cause a change in genetic population structure and variability, because local extinctions or reduction in fitness are not expected to be random in geographical space. Here we used an ensemble forecast approach of Species Distribution Modeling (SDM hereafter, also known as niche modeling) to derive current and future geographic distribution of the Neotropical tree Dipteryx alata (“Baru” tree, Fabaceae). We then obtained a series of genetic parameters for the species after generating extinctions in areas of low future habitat suitability.