Areas of climate stability of species ranges in the Brazilian Cerrado: disentangling uncertainties through time

Abstract

Recognizing the location of climatically stable areas in the future is subjected to uncertainties from ecological niche models, climatic models, variation in species ranges responses, and from the climatic variation through time. Here, we proposed an approach based on hierarchical ANOVA to reduce uncertainties and to identify climatically stable areas, working with Cerrado tree species as a model organism. Ecological niche models were generated for 18 Cerrado tree species and their potential distributions were projected into past and future. Analyses of the sources of uncertainties in ensembles hindcasts/forecasts revealed that the time component was the most important source of variation, whereas the climatic models had the smallest effect. The species responses to climate changes do not showed marked differences within each time period. By comparing past and future predictions, a single continuous climatically stable area was identified, which should be considered as a potential improvement for spatial prioritization for conservation.

A large historical refugium explains spatial patterns of genetic diversity in a Neotropical savanna tree species

“…A single climatically stable area was identified in the central area of the Cerrado for most species through time (the LGM, the present and the future). The large historical refugium that we identified for D. mollis includes, mainly in its eastern part, the climatically stable area identified by Terribile et al (2012). This climatically stable area encompasses parts of three floristic regions of the Cerrado biome (central-western, central and south-eastern, and north and north-eastern), which harbour high species diversity (Ratter et al, 2003).…”

“…An ENM study (Terribile et al, 2012) involving past and predicted future climate (end of the 21st century) of 18 Cerrado tree species, including D. mollis, projected a reduction of suitable area in relation to current distributions. In particular, the study projected southern and eastern displacement of the core area, with loss of suitability in most of the northern and western parts of the biome.…”

“…ENMs and AOGCMs) and the effects of climate change on the species distribution through time [i.e, the 'ecological signal'; see Terribile et al (2012) for details of the hierarchical design].…”

“…Such shifts would be reflected by high genetic differentiation among populations with low historical gene flow and lower genetic diversity in areas recently colonized. Based on data obtained here for D. mollis, and on the projected future distribution of 18 tree species widely distributed in the Cerrado (Terribile et al, 2012), we discussed the consequences of ongoing climate change on the persistence and maintenance of evolutionary potential in D. mollis, and preservation of the Cerrado biodiversity.…”

EcoClimate: a database of climate data from multiple models for past, present, and future for macroecologists and biogeographers

“…In the change-factor approach, current climate layers from weather station interpolations are often used to represent baseline climates from which change-factors are computed (Hijmans and Graham, 2006;Kriticos et al, 2012). We considered three scenarios from AOGCMs as baseline climates (pre-industrial, historical, and modern), taking into account macroecological and biogeographic interests, as has been used in applications such as ecological niche modeling (Terribile et al, 2012;Collevatti et al, 2013a;Lima et al, 2014); they also cover time periods for ample biodiversity data exist, and so are potentially useful for models relating organisms to environments.…”