Climate change will reduce suitable Caatinga dry forest habitat for endemic plants with disproportionate impacts on specialized reproductive strategies

Abstract

Global climate change alters the dynamic of natural ecosystems and directly affects species distributions, persistence and diversity. The impacts of climate change may lead to dramatic changes in biotic interactions, such as pollination and seed dispersal. Life history traits are extremely important to consider the vulnerability of a species to climate change, producing more robust models than those based primarily on species distributions. Here, we hypothesized that rising temperatures and aridity will reduce suitable habitats for the endemic flora of the Caatinga, the most diverse dry tropical forest on Earth. Specifically, species with specialized reproductive traits (e.g. vertebrate pollination, biotic dispersal, obligatory cross-pollination) should be more affected by climate change than those with generalist traits. We performed two ecological niche models (current and future) to simulate the effects of climate change on the distribution area of endemic species in relation to life-history traits. We used the MIROC-ESM and CCSM4 models for both intermediate (RCP4.5) and highest predicted (RCP8.5) GHG emission scenarios, with a resolution of 30' (~1 km 2 ). Habitat with high occurrence probability (>80%) of endemic species will be reduced (up to ~10% for trees, ~13% for non-arboreous, 10–28% for species with any pollination/reproductive system), with the greatest reductions for species with specialized reproductive traits. In addition, the likely concentration of endemic plants in the extreme northeastern portion of the Caatinga, in more mesic areas, coincides with the currently most human-modified areas of the ecosystem, which combined with climate change will further contract suitable habitats of endemic species. In conclusion, plant species endemic to the Caatinga are highly vulnerable to even conservative scenarios of future climate change and may lose much of their climatic envelopes. New protected areas should be located in the northeastern portion of the Caatinga, which hosts a more favorable climate, but is currently exposed to escalating agricultural intensification.

Climate change impact assessment on water resources under RCP scenarios: A case study in Mundaú River Basin, Northeastern Brazil

“…The MRB contains 10.9% Atlantic Forest, one of the most devastated biomes in the world and represents 2.9% of the Caatinga (Andrade et al ., 2018). The Caatinga is an exclusively Brazilian biome, being the most diverse dry tropical forest on earth (Silva et al ., 2019). Although there have been extensive globally studies of hydrological processes under climate changes (Gebremicael et al ., 2017; Jain et al ., 2017; Oliveira et al ., 2017; Tan et al ., 2017; Malagò et al ., 2018; Shiferaw et al ., 2018), few studies have been conducted which specifically focus on the Caatinga Biome (Marengo et al ., 2012; Ribeiro Neto et al ., 2016; Santos et al ., 2019).…”

Water availability mediates functional shifts across ontogenetic stages in a regenerating seasonally dry tropical forest

“…In this perspective, it is worth mentioning that CAD plays a secondary role in decreasing species dispersal abilities, as seeds under high CAD and dry conditions present lower maximum dispersal distance in our focal landscape. Recent studies report that water stress is more important than human disturbance in terms of biological organization in the Caatinga dry forest (Silva et al , 2019, Sfair et al 2018), but the synergistic effect caused by low water availability and high CAD is rather pervasive to plant assemblage organization at the landscape spatial scale (Rito et al , 2017a). In addition, increments in disturbance reduce the dispersal capacity of plant species secondarily dispersed by ants (Leal et al , 2014) and disrupt plant–insect networks (Câmara et al , 2018; Câmara et al , 2019).…”

“…Most of these species are already considered proliferating disturbance‐adapted species in the Caatinga dry forest, with community‐ and ecosystem‐level impacts such as biotic homogenization and the control of forest aboveground biomass (Ribeiro‐Neto et al , 2016; Rito et al , 2017b; Souza et al , 2019). In addition, it has been proposed that endemic species with biotic dispersal will be the most affected by climate change in the Caatinga biota (Silva et al , 2019). Therefore, detecting and facilitating the colonization and establishment of rare species bearing low seed mass and high wood density (e.g.…”

Beneficial Plant-Associated Microorganisms From Semiarid Regions and Seasonally Dry Environments: A Review

“…A large diversity of Paraburkholderia also nodulate other Mimosoid legumes. In the case of Calliandra , although the majority of the β-rhizobia were related to Paraburkholderia nodosa , some isolates were not related to known rhizobia from Mimosa hosts ( Silva et al, 2019 ). Bournaud et al (2013) also isolated both β- and α-rhizobia in the genera Paraburkholderia and Rhizobium , respectively, from Piptadenia viridiflora growing in the Caatinga biome.…”