Regional disparity in extinction risk: Comparison of disjunct plant genera between eastern Asia and eastern North America

Houjuan Song; Alejandro Ordonez; Jens-Christian Svenning; Hong Qian; Xue Yin; Lingfeng Mao; Tao Deng; Jian Zhang

doi:10.1111/gcb.15525

Regional disparity in extinction risk: Comparison of disjunct plant genera between eastern Asia and eastern North America

Glob Chang Biol. 2021 May;27(9):1904-1914. doi: 10.1111/gcb.15525. Epub 2021 Feb 13.

Authors

Houjuan Song^{1

2

3}, Alejandro Ordonez^{2

3}, Jens-Christian Svenning^{2

3}, Hong Qian⁴, Xue Yin⁵, Lingfeng Mao⁶, Tao Deng⁷, Jian Zhang^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Zhejiang Tiantong Forest Ecosystem National Observation and Research Station, Research Center for Global Change and Ecological Forecasting, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China.
² Section for Ecoinformatics and Biodiversity, Department of Biology, Aarhus University, Aarhus C, Denmark.
³ Center for Biodiversity Dynamics in a Changing World (BIOCHANGE), Department of Biology, Aarhus University, Aarhus C, Denmark.
⁴ Research and Collections Center, Illinois State Museum, Springfield, IL, USA.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol and School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
⁶ Co-Innovation Center for Sustainable Forestry in Southern China, College of Biology and the Environment, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China.
⁷ CAS Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China.

PMID: 33474767
DOI: 10.1111/gcb.15525

Abstract

Climate and land cover changes are increasing threats to biodiversity globally. However, potentially varying biotic sensitivity is a major source of uncertainty for translating environmental changes to extinction risks. To reduce this uncertainty, we assessed how extinction risks will be affected by future human-driven environmental changes, focusing on 554 species from 52 disjunct plant genera between eastern Asia (EAS) and eastern North America (ENA) to control for differences in environmental sensitivity at the genus level. Species distribution models were used to estimate and compare the vulnerability of species in disjunct genera between the two regions under two climate and land cover change scenarios (RCP2.6 and RCP8.5) in the 2070s, allowing to assess the effects of differences in climate and land cover pressures. Compared with ENA, stronger pressures from climate and land cover changes along with smaller range sizes in EAS translate into a larger number and proportion of species in disjunct genera becoming threatened by the 2070s. These regional differences are more pronounced under a best-case climate scenario (RCP2.6), illustrating that strong climate change (RCP8.5) may override any regional buffer capacities. The main variables determining extinction risks differed between the two continental regions, with annual temperature range and cropland expansion being important in EAS, and annual precipitation being important in ENA. These results suggest that disparities in regional exposure to anthropogenic environmental changes may cause congeneric species with relatively similar sensitivity to have different future risks of extinction. Moreover, the findings highlight the context-specific nature of anthropogenic effects on biodiversity and the importance of making region-specific policies for conservation and restoration in response to the intensifying global changes.

Keywords: climate change; disjunct genera; extinction risk; land cover change; range shifts; species distribution modeling.

MeSH terms

Asia, Eastern
Biodiversity*
Climate Change
Ecosystem*
Humans
North America
Plants

Abstract

MeSH terms

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