Potential distribution patterns of scorpions in north‐eastern Brazil under scenarios of future climate change

Abstract

Current predictions about the responses of species to climate change strongly rely on projecting altered environmental conditions on their distributions. In this study, we investigated the effects of future climate change scenarios on the potential distribution of 10 species of scorpions in north‐eastern Brazil in the context of their degree of specialisation to closed (Atlantic and Amazon Forests) and open (Caatinga and Cerrado) habitats. Scorpion species were classified as habitat specialists or generalists according to the IndVal index, and present and future species distribution models were prepared using minimum volume ellipsoids. According to IndVal, four species were classified as closed‐forest specialists (Ananteris mauryi, Tityus brazilae, Tityus pusillus and Tityus neglectus), four as open‐forest specialists (Jaguajir agamemnon, Jaguajir rochae, Physoctonus debilis and Bothriurus rochai), and two as generalists (Tityus stigmurus and Bothriurus asper). All species presented a drastic reduction in potential distribution, ranging from 44% to 72%, when compared with their current distribution. In addition, we found a reduction in scorpion species richness under future climate change scenarios. This finding has implications for scorpion conservation. Further, the results show that climate change may impact the composition of scorpion assemblages in north‐eastern Brazil, revealing important implications for human–scorpion interactions.

Disentangling diversity patterns in Cuban scorpions (Arachnida: Scorpiones)

“…Lira et al (2019aLira et al ( , 2021 argue that landscape structure changes such vegetation cover may act as a complex filter, limiting the dispersion of the majority of the scorpion species in Brazilian Atlantic Forest and Caatinga. For example, forest specialists' scorpions are unable to colonize the open forested areas neighboring their forest remnant (Lira et al, 2019b;Lira et al, 2020). Therefore, the larger contribution of species replacement to the overall scorpion dβ found in our study indicates that the mechanism behind the assembly of scorpion assemblages in the Cuban archipelago is likely related to the high environmental heterogeneity, as well as the historical and independent colonization events that are intrinsically associated to the biogeographical history of the Cuban archipelago (Crews & Esposito, 2020).…”

Vulnerable areas to accidents with scorpions in Brazil

“…Although quite important, few investigations have investigated the determining factors for the geographic distributions of those animals, or how our knowledge of their distributions could be used to elaborate strategies for accident mitigation (e.g. Refs [24,40,41]).…”

“…Ref. [41,51]). Although T. obscurus can be encountered in urban areas [20], its preference for forest environments and low affinity for urban conditions may be responsible for the low population density in northern Brazil.…”

A Fine-Scale Hotspot at the Edge: Epigean Arthropods from the Atacama Coast (Paposo-Taltal, Antofagasta Region, Chile)

“…However, much more field work on the coast is needed for disentangling those relationships, especially in El Niño years. The potential effects of climate change are already under observation in different coastal regions of Latin America [89] and hotspots worldwide [90,91], but much needs to be done especially in the field, considering that the changes in plant species composition seem to drastically affect endangered insects [92]. All these are crucial aspects that will certainly drive entomological surveying and monitoring in our current times of ecological crises.…”