Climate change threatens native potential agroforestry plant species in Brazil

Valdeir Pereira Lima, Renato Augusto Ferreira de Lima, Fernando Joner, Ilyas Siddique, Niels Raes, Hans Ter Steege

    Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

    Abstract

    Climate change is one of the main drivers of species extinction in the twentyfirst-century. Here, we  (1) quantify potential changes in species' bioclimatic area of habitat (BAH) of 135 native potential agroforestry species from the Brazilian flora, using two different climate change scenarios (SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5) and dispersal scenarios, where species have no ability to disperse and reach new areas (non-dispersal) and where species can migrate within the estimated BAH (full dispersal) for 2041-2060 and 2061-2080. We then (2) assess the preliminary conservation status of each species based on IUCN criteria. Current and future potential habitats for species were predicted using MaxEnt, a machine-learning algorithm used to estimate species' probability distribution. Future climate is predicted to trigger a mean decline in BAH between 38.5-56.3% under the non-dispersal scenario and between 22.3-41.9% under the full dispersal scenario for 135 native potential agroforestry species. Additionally, we found that only 4.3% of the studied species could be threatened under the IUCN Red List criteria B1 and B2. However, when considering the predicted quantitative habitat loss due to climate change (A3c criterion) the percentages increased between 68.8-84.4% under the non-dispersal scenario and between 40.7-64.4% under the full dispersal scenario. To lessen such threats, we argue that encouraging the use of these species in rural and peri-urban agroecosystems are promising, complementary strategies for their long-term conservation.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number2267
    Pages (from-to)1-14
    Number of pages14
    JournalScientific Reports
    Volume12
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 10 Feb 2022

    Bibliographical note

    Publisher Copyright:
    © 2022. The Author(s).

    Funding

    This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior—Brasil (CAPES)—Finance Code 001. R.A.F.L. was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 795114.

    FundersFunder number
    Marie Skłodowska-Curie
    Horizon 2020 Framework Programme795114
    Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior

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