The relative impact of climate change on the extinction risk of tree species in the montane tropical Andes

There are widespread concerns that anthropogenic climate change will become a major cause of global biodiversity loss. However, the potential impact of climate change on the extinction risk of species remains poorly understood, particularly in comparison to other current threats. The objective of this research was to examine the relative impact of climate change on extinction risk of upper montane tree species in the tropical Andes, an area of high biodiversity value that is particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts. The extinction risk of 129 tree species endemic to the region was evaluated according to the IUCN Red List criteria, both with and without the potential impacts of climate change. Evaluations were supported by development of species distribution models, using three methods (generalized additive models, recursive partitioning, and support vector machines), all of which produced similarly high AUC values when averaged across all species evaluated (0.82, 0.86, and 0.88, respectively). Inclusion of climate change increased the risk of extinction of 18-20% of the tree species evaluated, depending on the climate scenario. The relative impact of climate change was further illustrated by calculating the Red List Index, an indicator that shows changes in the overall extinction risk of sets of species over time. A 15% decline in the Red List Index was obtained when climate change was included in this evaluation. While these results suggest that climate change represents a significant threat to tree species in the tropical Andes, they contradict previous suggestions that climate change will become the most important cause of biodiversity loss in coming decades. Conservation strategies should therefore focus on addressing the multiple threatening processes currently affecting biodiversity, rather than focusing primarily on potential climate change impacts.

10.1371/journal.pone.0131388

1932-6203

Garavito, Natalia Tejedor

26fd242c-c882-4210-a74d-af2bb6753ee3

Newton, Adrian C.

33e105a6-2f1d-40e6-a7b2-05fd84a99137

Golicher, Duncan

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Oldfield, Sara

687b6c36-cf68-4710-bd1b-61f6c263ce61

15 July 2015

Garavito, Natalia Tejedor

26fd242c-c882-4210-a74d-af2bb6753ee3

Newton, Adrian C.

33e105a6-2f1d-40e6-a7b2-05fd84a99137

Golicher, Duncan

6cb5d026-3f59-4255-9498-ccd96785f93e

Oldfield, Sara

687b6c36-cf68-4710-bd1b-61f6c263ce61

Garavito, Natalia Tejedor, Newton, Adrian C., Golicher, Duncan and Oldfield, Sara (2015) The relative impact of climate change on the extinction risk of tree species in the montane tropical Andes. PLoS ONE, 10 (7), [e0131388]. (doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0131388).

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Published date: 15 July 2015

Additional Information: Funding Information: We thank the Missouri Botanical Gardens for use of Tropicos data, and the following specialists who contributed to the assessment: Esteban Álvarez, Sandra Arango Caro, Alejandro Araujo Murakami, Cecilia Blundo, Tatiana Erika Boza Espinoza, Maria de los Angeles La Torre Cuadros, Juan Gaviria, Nestor Gutíerrez, Peter M. Jørgensen, Blanca León, Rene López Camacho, Lucio Malizia, Betty Millán, Monica Moraes, Silvia Pacheco, Carlos Reynel, Martin Timaná de la Flor, Omar Vacas Cruz, Alejandra Moscoso, Hamilton Beltran, Severo Baldeón, Carolina Granados Mendoza, Marie Stephanie Samain, Eduardo Rudas and Orlando Rivera Ruiz, Hugo Navarrete, Arturo Mora. This research was supported by a Bournemouth University studentship to the senior author, and support from the Franklinia Foundation to BGCI. Publisher Copyright: © 2015 Tejedor Garavito et al. Copyright: Copyright 2015 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.