Understanding climate change impacts on biome and plant distributions in the Andes: Challenges and opportunities

Tovar, Carolina; Carril, Andrea F.; Gutiérrez, Álvaro G.; Ahrends, Antje; Fita, L.; Zaninelli, Pablo G.; Flombaum, Pedro; Abarzúa, Ana M.; Alarcón, Diego; Aschero, Valeria; Báez, Selene; Barros, Agustina; Carilla, Julieta; Ferrero, María Eugenia; Flantua, S.G.A.; Gonzáles, Paúl; Menéndez, Claudio G.; Pérez‐Escobar, Oscar Alejandro; Pauchard, Aníbal; Ruscica, Romina; Särkinen, Tiina; Sörensson, Anna A.; Srur, Ana Marina; Villalba, Ricardo; Hollingsworth, Peter M.

doi:10.1111/jbi.14389

Cited by 48 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 179 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Other authors have suggested that increasing vegetation activity in montane systems is related with the occurrence of anomalous rain and snow episodes (Otto et al, 2011;Anderson et al, 2021). Despite our lack of long-term instrumental data, measurements of soil temperature indicate an upward temperature trend (even the short series), which is supported by soil measurements since 1970 for the area data from Halloy (2002, and more recently data not published), accurately reflecting global warming trends (Vuille et al, 2018;Tovar et al, 2022). Soil temperature increases are especially indicative of long term warming because deep soil temperature is more stable than surface temperature, and therefore long-term signals can be better distinguished from background variability.…”

Section: Lakessupporting

confidence: 69%

“…The dry Central High Andean ecosystems (c. 18 to 35 LS; Tovar et al, 2022) present extreme climatic conditions, with life growing at its physiological limits mainly due to low temperature and limiting resources such as water, nutrients, CO2 and O2 (Körner, 1999;Pauli and Halloy, 2019). In these systems, biological diversity and vegetation productivity are mainly concentrated in wetlands, which play a central role in wildlife and water regulation, as well as human occupation and pastoralism history (Izquierdo et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Hydroclimate and vegetation variability of high Andean ecosystems

et al. 2023

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Mountain ecosystems are sensitive to climate fluctuations; however, the scarcity of instrumental data makes necessary the use of complementary information to study the effect of climate change on these systems. Remote sensing permits studying the dynamics of vegetation productivity and wetlands in response to climate variability at different scales. In this study we identified the main climate variables that control vegetation dynamics and water balance in Cumbres Calchaquíes, NW Argentina. For this, we built annual time series from 1986 to 2019 of Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI, to quantify spare vegetation productivity), lake area, and snow-ice cover of peatlands, as indicators of mountain productivity and hydrology. We used a decompose function to explore trend, seasonality and random signal of the three-time series, and explored for significant changes in the mean value of consecutive periods. We used correlational analysis to explore their associations with climate records at local, regional, and global scales. The results showed that, SAVI and hydrological indicators presented different fluctuation patterns more pronounced since 2012, when they showed divergent trends with increasing SAVI and decreasing lake area and snow-ice cover. The three indicators responded differently to climate; SAVI increased in warmer years and lake area reflected the water balance of previous years. Snow-ice cover of peatlands was highly correlated with lake area. La Niña had a positive effect on lake area and snow-ice cover and a negative on SAVI, while El Niño had a negative effect on SAVI. Fluctuations of lake areas were synchronized with lake area in the nearby Argentinian puna, suggesting that climate signals have regional extent. The information provided by the three hydroclimate indicators is complementary and reflects different climate components and processes; biological processes (SAVI), physical processes (snow ice cover) and their combination (lake area). This study provides a systematic accessible replicable tool for mountain eco-hydrology long-term monitoring.

show abstract

Section: Lakessupporting

confidence: 69%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hydroclimate and vegetation variability of high Andean ecosystems

et al. 2023

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Finally, ecological processes such as colonization and germination could play a big factor for promoting or restricting species range shifts [ 53 ]. Habitat in the upper limits of Cinchona distribution has declined in the last two centuries in Ecuador and Colombia due to agricultural expansion.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… source period taxon no sp. no of records analysed country Caldas S2a memoirs [ 24 ], map of C. officinalis [ 53 ] and Andean profiles late colonial Cinchona sp. and C. officinalis n.a.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes of Cinchona distribution over the past two centuries in the northern Andes

2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Cinchona genus is important for humanity due to its ethnobotanical properties, and in particular its ability to prevent and treat malaria. However, there have been historical changes of Cinchona distribution in the tropical Andes that remain undocumented. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, several explorers recorded Cinchona precise localities in present-day Colombia and Ecuador, countries which harbour about half of the species of the genus, including C. officinalis . We compare historical and twentieth-century records to evaluate whether elevational ranges, mean elevation and latitude varied between the two periods. A large expansion of 662.5 m in average elevation for Cinchona and 792.5 m in elevational range for C. officinalis was found. These findings have implications for the conservation of economically important species and help us understand the impacts of the Anthropocene over time.

show abstract

“…The Andes biodiversity hotspot hosts over 28,000 plant species [ 1 , 2 ] , of which 3,805 are reported to benefit humanity [ 3 ] . Unfortunately, nuclear genomic resources are currently available for only 179 species [ 4 ] .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A highly contiguous, scaffold-level nuclear genome assembly for the fever tree (Cinchona pubescens Vahl) as a novel resource for Rubiaceae research

et al. 2022

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Andean fever tree (Cinchona L.; Rubiaceae) is a source of bioactive quinine alkaloids used to treat malaria. C. pubescens Vahl is a valuable cash crop within its native range in northwestern South America, however, genomic resources are lacking. Here we provide the first highly contiguous and annotated nuclear and plastid genome assemblies using Oxford Nanopore PromethION-derived long-read and Illumina short-read data. Our nuclear genome assembly comprises 603 scaffolds with a total length of 904 Mbp (∼82% of the full genome based on a genome size of 1.1 Gbp/1C). Using a combination of de novo and reference-based transcriptome assemblies we annotated 72,305 coding sequences comprising 83% of the BUSCO gene set and 4.6% fragmented sequences. Using additional plastid and nuclear datasets we place C. pubescens in the Gentianales order. This first genomic resource for C. pubescens opens new research avenues, including the analysis of alkaloid biosynthesis in the fever tree.

show abstract

Understanding climate change impacts on biome and plant distributions in the Andes: Challenges and opportunities

Cited by 48 publications

References 179 publications

Hydroclimate and vegetation variability of high Andean ecosystems

Hydroclimate and vegetation variability of high Andean ecosystems

Changes of Cinchona distribution over the past two centuries in the northern Andes

A highly contiguous, scaffold-level nuclear genome assembly for the fever tree (Cinchona pubescens Vahl) as a novel resource for Rubiaceae research

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About