Climate change and plant dispersal along corridors in fragmented landscapes of Mesoamerica

Abstract

Climate change is a threat to biodiversity, and adaptation measures should be considered in biodiversity conservation planning. Protected areas (PA) are expected to be impacted by climate change and improving their connectivity with biological corridors (BC) has been proposed as a potential adaptation measure, although assessing its effectiveness remains a challenge. In Mesoamerica, efforts to preserve the biodiversity have led to the creation of a regional network of PA and, more recently, BC. This study evaluates the role of BC for facilitating plant dispersal between PA under climate change in Mesoamerica. A spatially explicit dynamic model (cellular automaton) was developed to simulate species dispersal under different climate and conservation policy scenarios. Plant functional types (PFT) were defined based on a range of dispersal rates and vegetation types to represent the diversity of species in the region. The impacts of climate change on PA and the role of BC for dispersal were assessed spatially. Results show that most impacted PA are those with low altitudinal range in hot, dry, or high latitude areas. PA with low altitudinal range in high cool areas benefit the most from corridors. The most important corridors cover larger areas and have high altitude gradients. Only the fastest PFT can keep up with the expected change in climate and benefit from corridors for dispersal. We conclude that the spatial assessment of the vulnerability of PA and the role of corridors in facilitating dispersal can help conservation planning under a changing climate.

Mapping conservation priorities and connectivity pathways under climate change for tropical ecosystems

“…Mean annual temperature velocity estimates found in this study (0.17 km/yr) are lower than those presented by Imbach et al (2013) Dobrowski et al (2013) calculated climate velocities at five different resolutions (between 30 arc-seconds and 1 degree) and found that at coarser spatial resolution climate velocity increased due to an underestimation on the terrain capacity to buffer changes in climate. We found no reports on precipitation velocities for this region.…”

“…The current design of the BC network in Mesoamerica is aimed at facilitating connectivity between protected areas (Mesoamericano 2007). However, species needs for dispersal pathways as a response to change in climate was not taken into account and current corridors have limited use for species dispersal under climate change (Imbach et al 2013). Tropical areas pose a particular challenge for designing corridors given their species richness and limited knowledge on their dispersal processes (Rouget et al 2006), although corridors with large areas that cover altitudinal gradients have been proposed as general design guidelines (Imbach et al 2013).…”

Projections of climate change impacts on central America tropical rainforest

“…Central America is a biodiversity hotspot area, and the region's governments have demonstrated their commitment to biodiversity conservation through the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor (Holland 2012). However, future climate change can alter the composition and distribution of species (Parry et al 2007) and ecosystems (Imbach et al 2013), leading to a need for conservation strategies to be reassessed. Projections of the possible impacts of climate change on ecosystems can help support assessments of conservation needs and adaptation measures in the region.…”

Meta‐corridor solutions for climate‐vulnerable plant species groups in South Korea

“…While there is intense debate over the benefits and risks of assisted colonization (also known as assisted migration or managed relocation), it is one option for preserving biodiversity under a changing climate, especially for species characterized by poor dispersal, long life cycles or low competitive ability (Imbach et al . ; Lunt et al . ).…”