Abstract
Background and AimsGlobal climate change is a major threat to biodiversity worldwide. Several arid areas might expand in the future, but it is not clear if this change would be positive or negative for arid-adapted lineages. Here, we explore whether climatic niche properties are involved in the configuration of climate refugia and thus in future species trends.MethodsTo estimate putative climate refugia and potential expansion areas, we used maximum entropy models and four climate-change models to generate current and future potential distributions of 142 plant species endemic to the Atacama and mediterranean Chilean ecosystems. We assessed the relationship between the similarity and breadth of thermal and precipitation niches with the size of climate refugia and areas of potential expansions.Key ResultsWe found a positive relationship between breadth and similarity for thermal niche with the size of climate refugia, but only niche similarity of the thermal niche was positively related with the size of expansion areas. Although all lineages would reduce their distributions in the future, few species are predicted to be at risk of extinction in their current distribution, and all of them presented potential expansion areas.ConclusionSpecies with a broad niche and niche dissimilarity will have larger refugia, and species with niche dissimilarity will have larger expansion areas. In addition, our prediction for arid lineages shows that these species will be moderately affected by climate change.
Highlights
Global climate change is one of the main factors impacting terrestrial and marine biodiversity in this century (Barnosky et al, 2011)
Dataset and study region This study was conducted in western South America between 25° and 47° latitude, on 142 species from six plant genera: Chaetanthera (Asteraceae), Eriosyce (Cactaceae), Malesherbia (Passifloraceae), Schizanthus and Nolana (Solanaceae), and Leucocoryne (Alliaceae)
We found a potential expansion area of 0%–224.7% for the 2.6 model, 0%–461.1% for the 4.5 model, 0%–406.8% for the 6.0 model and 0%–828.8% for the 8.5 model
Summary
Global climate change is one of the main factors impacting terrestrial and marine biodiversity in this century (Barnosky et al, 2011). Methods: To estimate putative climate refugia and potential expansion areas, we used maximum entropy models and four climate-change models to generate current and future potential distributions of 142 plant species endemic to the Atacama and mediterranean Chilean ecosystems. We assessed the relationship between the similarity and breadth of thermal and precipitation niches with the size of climate refugia and areas of potential expansions. All lineages would reduce their distributions in the future, few species are predicted to be at risk of extinction in their current distribution, and all of them presented potential expansion areas. Our prediction for arid lineages shows that these species will be moderately affected by climate change
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