Abstract
Eucalyptus grandis and E. dunnii have high productive potential in the South of Brazil, Uruguay, and central Argentina. This is based on the similarity of the climate and soil of these areas, which form an eco-region called Campos. However, previous results show that these species have differences in their distribution caused by the prioritization of Uruguayan soils for forestry, explained by the particular conditions of each site. In this study, the site variables (climate, soil, and topography) that better explain the distribution of both species were identified, and prediction models of current and future distribution were adjusted for different climate change scenarios (years 2050 and 2070). The distribution of E. grandis was associated with soil parameters, whereas for E. dunnii a greater effect of the climatic variables was observed. The ensemble biomod2 model was the most precise with regard to predicting the habitat for both species with respect to the simple models evaluated. For E. dunnii, the average values of the AUC, Kappa, and TSS index were 0.98, 0.88, and 0.77, respectively. For E. grandis, their values were 0.97, 0.86, and 0.80, respectively. In the projections of climatic change, the distribution of E. grandis occurrence remains practically unchanged, even in the scenarios of temperature increase. However, current distribution of E. dunnii shows high susceptibility in a scenario of increased temperature, to the point that most of the area currently planted may be at risk. Our results might be useful to political government and foresters for decision making in terms of future planted areas.
Highlights
In Uruguay, commercially, Eucalyptus trees have been planted in different areas of the country and today trees of this genus occupy 726,000 ha [1]
We considered the most parsimonious model, i.e., the one with lower number of variables [28], built with the non-collinear variables that maximized the accuracy statistic value (AUC) value of the Random Forest (RF) model prediction [36,37]
The results of the variable selection process revealed the importance of 4 and 5 variables out of the initial 98 variables for Eucalyptus dunni and for E. grandis model projection, respectively, as being non-collinear (n = 27; VIF < 10); and highlighted by the variable selection procedure run by the AUCRF
Summary
In Uruguay, commercially, Eucalyptus trees have been planted in different areas of the country and today trees of this genus occupy 726,000 ha [1]. According to some authors [3,4], Eucalyptus species are adequate for studies of climate change adaptability because trees of this genus are planted in a broad range of environments This indicates that, in general, eucalypts are relatively less affected by climate changes [5] this is closely related to the temperature of the areas of origin of the different genetic materials [6]. The projections made by these authors indicate that there will be a slight increase in rainfall in the summer months and an increase in maximum and minimum temperatures throughout the year These types of changes do not imply a relocation of the species because the eventual climate alterations do not necessarily represent a limit to their distribution [5]. The response of the eucalypts to the increase in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is related to changes in the ambient temperature so that the increase of both factors improved the growth of greenhouse plants without water deficit [16]
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