Experimental evidence of climate change extinction risk in Neotropical montane epiphytes.

ABSTRACT: Climate change is conjectured to endanger tropical species, particularly in biodiverse montane regions, but accurate estimates of extinction risk are limited by a lack of empirical data demonstrating tropical species' sensitivity to climate. To fill this gap, studies could match high-quality distribution data with multi-year transplant experiments. Here, we conduct field surveys of epiphyte distributions on three mountains in Central America and perform reciprocal transplant experiments on one mountain across sites that varied in elevation, temperature and aridity. We find that most species are unable to survive outside of their narrow elevational distributions. Additionally, our findings suggest starkly different outcomes from temperature conditions expected by 2100 under different climat

SUBMITTER: Hollenbeck EC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11258140 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature