Abstract
South American coralsnakes are characterized by inconspicuous and poorly known species, which are potentially very sensitive to climate change. Here, we assess the impact of future climate change on the distributions of the Micrurus lemniscatus species complex after addressing the Wallacean shortfalls and refining the knowledge about their current geographic distributions. We also evaluate the efficiency of the current reserve network to protect the species in the present and future. We applied ecological niche model tools through a carefully examined set of occurrence records to generate potential present distributions and to project these distributions into future scenarios of climate change. Specific thresholds based on occurrence records along with expert opinions were used to delineate the geographic distribution of each species. A hierarchical ANOVA was applied to evaluate the uncertainties in species distributions across niche modeling methods and climate models and nested into the time factor (present and future). Multiple regression models were used to infer the relative importance of the climatic variables to determine the species’ suitability. A gap analysis was performed to address the representativeness of species distributions into protected areas. Predicted geographic distributions were compatible with the known distributions and the expert opinions, except for M. l. carvalhoi. New areas for field research were identified. Variation in precipitation was the most important factor defining the habitat suitability for all species, except for M. diutius. All taxa (except M. l. lemniscatus) will shrink their distributions in the future; less than 50% of the present suitable areas are protected in reserve networks, and less than 40% of these areas will be held in reserves in the future. We found strong evidence that coralsnakes may be highly sensitive to the ongoing changes and must be protected.
Highlights
An accurate knowledge of species geographic distributions is critical to preserve biodiversity in a changing world
We address the Wallacean shortfalls for the M. lemniscatus complex by refining our knowledge about the geographic distribution of species based on ecological niche modeling tools and a set of thoroughly examined occurrence records from scientific collections
In Brazil, the M. l. lemniscatus distribution extends towards the northern part of the Cerrado and Caatinga biomes
Summary
An accurate knowledge of species geographic distributions is critical to preserve biodiversity in a changing world. The most important issue regarding the impact of climate change is that species that are unable to evolve rapid physiological adaptations or climatic tolerances (to new thermal conditions) may become extinct unless they have good dispersal abilities to track suitable habitats [21,22,23,24]. These impacts are harmful for those species that are habitat specialists, which would probably fail to migrate following suitable climates [23,25]. With few exceptions, snakes have been neglected from studies assessing the impacts of climate change [24,26,27]
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