Unraveling global impacts of climate change on amphibians distributions: A life-history and biogeographic-based approach

Abstract

Climate change can affect species distribution patterns in three different ways: pushing them to disperse to new suitable areas, forcing them to adapt to novel climatic conditions, or driving them to extinction. However, the biological and geographical traits that lead to these different responses remain poorly explored. Here, we evaluated how ecological and biogeographic traits influence amphibians’ response to climate change. We performed a systematic review searching for studies that evaluated the effects of future climate change on amphibian’s distribution. Our research returned 31 articles that projected the distribution of 331 amphibians. Our results demonstrate that species inhabiting an elevation above 515 m will lose a significant portion of their climatically suitable area. We also found that as isothermality increases, the amount of area suitable in response to climate change also increases. Another important discovery was that as the size of the baseline area increases, the greater must be the loss of climatically suitable areas. On the other hand, species with very small areas tend to keep their current climatically suitable area in the future. Furthermore, our results indicate that species that inhabit dry habitats tend to expand their suitable area in response to climate change. This result can be explained by the environmental characteristics of these habitats, which tend to present extreme seasonal climates with well-defined periods of drought and rain. We also found that anurans that inhabit exclusively forests are projected to lose a greater portion of their suitable areas, when compared to species that inhabit both forest and open areas, wetlands, and dry and rupestrian environments. The biogeographical realm also influenced anuran’s range shifts, with Afrotropic and Nearctic species projected to expand their geographical ranges. The assessment of climate change effects on amphibian distribution has been the focus of a growing number of studies. Despite this, some regions and species remain underrepresented. Current literature evaluates about 4% of the 7,477 species of Anura and 8% of the 773 species of Caudata and some regions rich in amphibian species remain severely underrepresented, such as Madagascar. Thus, future studies should focus on regions and taxas that remain underrepresented.

Impacts of climate change and habitat loss on the distribution of the endangered crested capuchin monkey (Sapajus robustus)

“…These species are usually associated with narrow climatic niche and high habitat specialization so that small ranged and endemic species should be disproportionately vulnerable to climate change (Slatyer et al, 2013) and more prone to a geographical mismatch between current and future climatic conditions (Schwartz et al, 2006). Conversely, recent global reviews for amphibians and birds indicate that smaller the current species range size, smaller the losses of suitable area induced by climate change, due to the higher climatic stability within current ranges of endemic/small ranged species (Alves‐Ferreira et al, 2022; Mota et al, 2022). This is consistent with the projection for the crested capuchin, which can lose some suitable area only toward the Atlantic Forest ‐ Cerrado ecotone, which is expected to be less climatically suitable for the maintenance of wet tropical vegetation as warm and dry conditions expand (Rajaud & Noblet‐Ducoudré, 2017; Torres & Marengo, 2014).…”

How hibernation in frogs drives brain and reproductive evolution in opposite directions

“…Our findings also have important implications in the context of sustained environmental change, exacerbated by climate change with its effects on temperature and precipitation patterns around the globe ( IPCC, 2022 ). Such climatic shifts may disrupt the timing of brumation and breeding in many anurans, change their exposure to pathogens or predators through modified activity patterns, affect their ability to find food or suitable breeding sites, or change their population dynamics through resource availability, intra- and interspecific competition, dispersal capabilities, and gene flow ( Alves-Ferreira et al, 2022 ; Blaustein et al, 2010 ; Blaustein et al, 2001 ; Carey and Alexander, 2003 ). In species with temperature-dependent sexual differentiation, thermal shifts may further change operational sex ratios in breeding populations and thus likely mating dynamics and sexual selection ( Eggert, 2004 ; Lüpold et al, 2017 ; Ruiz-García et al, 2021 ).…”

How hibernation in frogs drives brain and reproductive evolution in opposite directions

“…Our findings also have important implications in the context of sustained environmental change, exacerbated by climate change with its effects on temperature and precipitation patterns around the globe (IPCC, 2022). Such climatic shifts may disrupt the timing of brumation and breeding in many anurans, change their exposure to pathogens or predators through modified activity patterns, affect their ability to find food or suitable breeding sites, or change their population dynamics through resource availability, intra-and interspecific competition, dispersal capabilities, and gene flow (Alves-Ferreira et al, 2022;Blaustein et al, 2010;Blaustein et al, 2001;Carey and Alexander, 2003). In species with temperature-dependent sexual differentiation, thermal shifts may further change operational sex ratios in breeding populations and thus likely mating dynamics and sexual selection (Eggert, 2004;Lüpold et al, 2017;Ruiz-García et al, 2021).…”