The fate of endemic insects of the Andean region under the effect of global warming

Abstract

Three independent but complementary lines of research have provided evidence for the recognition of refugia: paleontology, phylogeography and species distributional modelling (SDM). SDM assesses the ecological requirements of a species based on its known occurrences and enables its distribution to be projected on past climatological reconstructions. One advantage over the other two approaches is that it provides an explicit link to environment and geography, thereby enabling the analysis of a large number of taxa in the search for more general refugia patterns. We propose a methodology for using SDM to recognize biogeographical patterns of endemic insects from Southern South America. We built species distributional models for 59 insect species using Maxent. The species analyzed in the study have narrow niche breadth and were classified into four assemblages according to the ecoregion they inhabit. Models were built for the Late Pleistocene, Mid-Holocene and Present. Through the procedure developed for this study we used the models to recognize: Late Pleistocene refugia; areas with high species richness during all three periods; climatically constant areas (in situ refugia); consistent patterns among in situ refugia, Pleistocene refugia and current distribution of endemic species. We recognized two adjacent Pleistocene refugia with distinct climates; four in situ refugia, some of which are undergoing a process of fragmentation and retraction or enlargement. Interestingly, we found a congruent pattern among in situ refugia, Pleistocene refugia and endemic species. Our results seem to be consistent with the idea that long-term climate stability is known to have a key role in promoting persistence of biodiversity in an area. Our Pleistocene and in situ refugia are consistent with refugia identified in studies focusing on different taxa and applying other methodologies, showing that the method developed can be used to identify such areas and prove their importance for conservation.

Native bees of high Andes of Central Chile (Hymenoptera: Apoidea): biodiversity, phenology and the description of a new species ofXeromelissaCockerell (Hymenoptera: Colletidae: Xeromelissinae)

“…If temperature rises, flowering time might be reduced (Theobald, Breckheimer & HilleRisLambers, 2017), and could affect the emergence and temporal occurrence of these insects. This dyssynchrony between emergence of adult bees and the flowering period of their host plants has been suggested to be a potential scenario resulting from man-made environmental modifications such as erosion, habitat loss, urbanization and global warming patterns (Gottfried et al, 1999;Öztürk et al, 2015;Melo et al, 2017;Sánchez-Bayoa & Wyckhuys, 2019). Climate change could be outpacing phenological change for all plant species, and combined with early snowmelt could be playing a role in flowering phenology by reducing the probability of flowering (Wadgymar et al, 2018).…”

“…Additionally it has been discovered that anthropogenic climate change is related to phenological shifts in bee species, with the consequence of a mismatch between the ancestral activity period of bee species and flowering period (Memmott et al, 2007;Hegland et al, 2009). For these reasons, it is apparent that there is an urgent need for further research, considering present threats such as global warming and other human-derived disturbances and the need for planet-scale insect conservation (Gottfried et al, 1999;Öztürk et al, 2015;Melo et al, 2017;Sánchez-Bayoa & Wyckhuys, 2019). Given that high-altitude ecosystems are experiencing the earliest and greatest impacts of climate change (Ruiz et al, 2008;Palomo, 2017), the knowledge regarding adult phenology of mountain bee species is also critical.…”

Using species distribution models at local scale to guide the search of poorly known species: Review, methodological issues and future directions

“…This family of methods has a broad range of applications, including the study of niche evolution (e.g. Warren et al, 2008;Montemayor et al, 2017), the prediction of climate change impacts (e.g. Fois et al, 2016;Vessella et al, 2017), and the identification of areas for conservation (e.g.…”

Improving geographic distribution data for a putatively extinct species, a test case with a disappeared fly

“…These models have been widely used to improve biogeographic information in the case of insect species (e.g. Escalante et al 2009, Hawlitschek et al 2011, Lecheta et al 2017, Montemayor et al 2017, and particularly for conservation efforts (e.g. Verovnik et al 2014, Nasser et al 2019.…”