Stability of Brazilian Seasonally Dry Forests under Climate Change: Inferences for Long-Term Conservation

Rosane G. Collevatti,José Alexandre F. Diniz-Filho,Matheus Souza Lima-Ribeiro,Ricardo Dobrovolski,Levi Carina Terribile,Guilherme Oliveira

doi:10.4236/ajps.2013.44098

Abstract

We identified climatically stable areas of seasonally dry forests (SDFs) from Central Brazil through time and assessed the effectiveness of the current reserves network in representing these climatically stable areas, as well as areas of high suitability in the present or in the future only. We used an ensemble approach based on several methods for ecological niche modelling (ENMs) to obtain potential distributions 16 SDF’ species for past (last glacial maximum), present, and future (end of XXI century) climate scenarios. We then computed how many current Brazilian reserves matched both stable areas (suitable areas for all time periods), present and future geographical ranges alone for each species, in a multi-level gap analysis. We found range shifts due to climate changes for SDF’ species. Although the future geographical range and stable areas for all analyzed species matched at least with one reserve, many protected areas will lose importance in protecting suitable areas for species in the future. Moreover, the current Brazilian reserves cover only a small amount of their climatically stable areas. However, some reserves will be suitable for many SDF’ species (90%) at the same time, but climatically stable for only half of them. Our findings show that vegetation community from SDFs may persist in Brazilian territories until the end of XXI century, and challenges about long-term conservation of the SDFs may be partially reached with already existing Brazilian reserve network, however the reserves should be connected to permit habitat tracking.

Highlights

Brazil is one of the most diverse countries in the world [1], with at least 19% of all existing plant species [2]
Our findings show that vegetation community from seasonally dry forests (SDFs) may persist in Brazilian territories until the end of XXI century, and challenges about long-term conservation of the SDFs may be partially reached with already existing Brazilian reserve network, the reserves should be connected to permit habitat tracking
The modeled distribution of Brazilian SDFs in presentday matched the boundaries of the Cerrado Biome in Central Brazil, the dry forests along the Paraguay-Paraná system rivers and partially the Caatinga biome, indicating that the set of species used to model SDFs is representative of this phytogeographical unit (Figure 2)

Summary

Introduction

Brazil is one of the most diverse countries in the world [1], with at least 19% of all existing plant species [2] It has the highest number of threatened species according to the IUCN classification Dry tropical forests are deciduous and semideciduous forests distributed in regions characterized by mean annual precipitation below 1600 mm and a distinct seasonality in rainfall [9]. They have high plant species diversity and endemism, usually 30 - 90 tree species/ha [10], with high variation among sites (β diversity) [11].

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Results

Conclusion