Experimental evidence of climate change extinction risk in Neotropical montane epiphytes.
Nat Commun
; 15(1): 6045, 2024 Jul 18.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-39025837
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 climate change scenarios. Under temperatures associated with low-emission scenarios, most tropical montane epiphyte species will survive, but under emission scenarios that are moderately high, 5-36% of our study species may go extinct and 10-55% of populations may be lost. Using a test of tropical species' climate tolerances from a large field experiment, paired with detailed species distribution data across multiple mountains, our work strengthens earlier conjecture about risks of wide-spread extinctions from climate change in tropical montane ecosystems.
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Clima Tropical
/
Mudança Climática
/
Ecossistema
/
Extinção Biológica
País/Região como assunto:
America central
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Nat Commun
Assunto da revista:
BIOLOGIA
/
CIENCIA
Ano de publicação:
2024
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Estados Unidos
País de publicação:
Reino Unido