Climate change may induce connectivity loss and mountaintop extinction in Central American forests.

ABSTRACT: The tropical forests of Central America serve a pivotal role as biodiversity hotspots and provide ecosystem services securing human livelihood. However, climate change is expected to affect the species composition of forest ecosystems, lead to forest type transitions and trigger irrecoverable losses of habitat and biodiversity. Here, we investigate potential impacts of climate change on the environmental suitability of main plant functional types (PFTs) across Central America. Using a large database of occurrence records and physiological data, we classify tree species into trait-based groups and project their suitability under three representative concentration pathways (RCPs 2.6, 4.5 and 8.5) with an ensemble of state-of-the-art correlative modelling methods. Our results forecast transit

SUBMITTER: Baumbach L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8282624 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature