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 transitions from wet towards generalist or dry forest PFTs for large parts of the study region. Moreover, suitable area for wet-adapted PFTs is projected to latitudinally diverge and lose connectivity, while expected upslope shifts of montane species point to high risks of mountaintop extinction. These findings underline the urgent need to safeguard the connectivity of habitats through biological corridors and extend protected areas in the identified transition hotspots.

Co-occurrence of climate-change induced and anthropogenic pressures in Central American key biodiversity areas

“…The data that support the findings of this study are openly available at the following URL/DOI: https:// zenodo.org/record/7837543 (Baumbach et al 2023).…”

“…While, for example, in Costa Rica large-scale deforestations of the 1980s had been reversed by the early 2000s, increasing monocultures and urban sprawl at the same time reduced overall ecological connectivity by 13% and thus undermined this possible success story (Montero et al 2021). In the end, particularly the connectivity of landscapes may become of utmost importance for conservation planning, both to allow climate-induced shifts and mobility between habitats and to reduce the risk of 'sink habitat' (Baumbach et al 2021).…”

Economic potential and management of tropical mixed-species plantations in Central America

“…Establishing mixed-species reforestations has been suggested as an alternative to such monocultures in carbon plantings (Hulvey et al 2013). Further, mixing species in commercial plantations might also be used as a risk mitigation strategy against climate change uncertainties, such as shifts in tree species distributions and site suitability (Allen et al 2010;Anadón et al 2014;Baumbach et al 2021;Messier et al 2021).…”

Potential impacts of climate change on the geographic distribution of Achillea eriophora DC., a medicinal species endemic to Iran in southwestern Asia

“…Climate change has considerably influenced the biological diversity and geographic species' distributions, especially rare and endemic species with narrow ranges (IPCC, 2014; Liao et al., 2023). The most common impacts of climate change on the distributions of species are that they shift, expand, or retract (Baumbach et al., 2021; Behroozian et al., 2020; Chaudhary et al., 2021; Khanal et al., 2022; Nabout et al., 2011; Yasuhara et al., 2020). Climate plays a crucial role in determining geographic distributions of plant species by shifting distributions or by adapting to changing conditions at broad scales (Behroozian et al., 2020; Erfanian et al., 2021; Ferrarini et al., 2019; Mousavi Kouhi et al., 2020; Parmesan, 2006; Schippers et al., 2011; Thuiller et al., 2005; Walther et al., 2002).…”