Multi-temporal ecological niche modeling for bird conservation in the face of climate change scenarios in Caatinga, Brazil.

Background: Global shifts in climatic patterns have been recorded over the last decades. Such modifications mainly correspond to increased temperatures and rainfall regime changes, which are becoming more variable and extreme. Methods: We aimed to evaluate the impact of future changes in climatic patterns on the distribution of 19 endemic or threatened bird taxa of the Caatinga. We assessed whether current protected areas (PAs) are adequate and whether they will maintain their effectiveness in the future. Also, we identified climatically stable areas that might work as refugia for an array of species. Results: We observed that 84% and 87% of the bird species of Caatinga analyzed in this study will face high area losses in their predicted range distribution areas in future scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively). We also observed that the current PAs in Caatinga are ineffective in protecting these species in both present and future scenarios, even when considering all protection area categories. However, several suitable areas can still be allocated for conservation, where there are vegetation remnants and a high amount of species. Therefore, our study paves a path for conservation actions to mitigate current and future extinctions due to climate change by choosing more suitable protection areas.

Back home? Uncertainties for returning seized animals to the source-areas under climate change.

Regardless of the economic, social and environmental impacts caused by wild animal trafficking worldwide, the suitable destination of seized specimens is one of the main challenges faced by environmental managers and authorities. In Brazil, returning seized animals to the wild has been the most frequent path in population restoration programs, and has been carried out, as a priority, in areas where the animals were captured. However, in addition to the difficulty in identifying the locations of illegal captures, little scientific knowledge is available on the future viability of the source-areas to global climate change. Thus, the current work aims to evaluate the impacts of climate change on the main source-municipalities for animal trafficking in Brazil, referred to herein as source-areas. For this, using ecological niche modeling, the environmental suitability of the source-areas for illegal animal captures was evaluated in two scenarios at two different time horizons: optimistic (RCP 26) and pessimistic (RCP 85) emission scenarios in both 2050 and 2070 projections. Moreover, the source-areas were compared with the Brazilian Federal protected areas, used here as the control group. According to the results, Brazilian source-municipalities are not always the best option for maintaining the most seized species in the future simulations, and, therefore, seem not be the best option for projects that aim for the return of these animals to the wild. In this sense, despite the genetic and ecological issues inherent in translocation projects, our results suggest that population restoration programs for seized species need to be rethought, and furthermore other suitable areas could be considered for truly ensuring the survival and maintenance of overexploited populations in the long term.