Niches and climate-change refugia in hundreds of species from one of the most arid places on Earth.

ABSTRACT:

Background and aims

Global climate change is a major threat to biodiversity worldwide. Several arid areas might expand in the future, but it is not clear if this change would be positive or negative for arid-adapted lineages. Here, we explore whether climatic niche properties are involved in the configuration of climate refugia and thus in future species trends.

Methods

To estimate putative climate refugia and potential expansion areas, we used maximum entropy models and four climate-change models to generate current and future potential distributions of 142 plant species endemic to the Atacama and mediterranean Chilean ecosystems. We assessed the relationship between the similarity and breadth of thermal and precipitation niches with the size of climate refugia and areas of

SUBMITTER: Duarte M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6745186 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature