Effects of climate change on vascular plant species from the southernmost Central Andes: a case study in north-western Argentina (NOA)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25260/EA.16.26.2.0.110Abstract
The Tropical Andes region has been indicated as a highly vulnerable region to climate change for its high diversity and endemism and its great altitudinal variability. While there have been an important number of predictions about the changing climate in the region, few studies have evaluated the impact this will have on the distribution of species. In this paper, we estimated the effect of climate change on the distribution and conservation of endemic species from north-western Argentina (southernmost Central Andes) for the years 2050 and 2080 and under two future scenarios (A2 and B1). According to the results, from the present to 2080, climate change in the region will cause a single extinction event, and changes in all distributional ranges of endemic species. Moreover, a widespread displacement of endemic species towards higher altitudes and subtropical areas is predicted, indicating that the impacts of future climate change will be greater for low and less arid ecoregions. Moreover, the NOA system of protected areas would not be able to represent adequately the endemic flora in the future under any scenario, according to the established target in the present study. These results highlight the need to concentrate conservation efforts on those species and ecosystems identified here as the most vulnerable in order to ensure the future conservation of the endemic flora of the most southern part of the Central Andes.References
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