Multi-temporal ecological niche modeling for bird conservation in the face of climate change scenarios in Caatinga, Brazil

Gabriela Silva Ribeiro Gonçalves; Pablo Vieira Cerqueira; Daniel Paiva Silva; Letícia Braga Gomes; Camila Ferreira Leão; André Felipe Alves de Andrade; Marcos Pérsio Dantas Santos

doi:10.7717/peerj.14882

Multi-temporal ecological niche modeling for bird conservation in the face of climate change scenarios in Caatinga, Brazil

PeerJ. 2023 Feb 27:11:e14882. doi: 10.7717/peerj.14882. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Gabriela Silva Ribeiro Gonçalves¹, Pablo Vieira Cerqueira¹, Daniel Paiva Silva², Letícia Braga Gomes¹, Camila Ferreira Leão¹, André Felipe Alves de Andrade³, Marcos Pérsio Dantas Santos¹

Affiliations

¹ Laboratório de Biogeografia da Conservação e Macroecologia, Universidade Federal do Pará, Belém, Brazil.
² Departamento de Biologia, Instituto Federal Goiano, Urutaí, Goiás, Brazil.
³ Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil.

Abstract

Background: Global shifts in climatic patterns have been recorded over the last decades. Such modifications mainly correspond to increased temperatures and rainfall regime changes, which are becoming more variable and extreme.

Methods: We aimed to evaluate the impact of future changes in climatic patterns on the distribution of 19 endemic or threatened bird taxa of the Caatinga. We assessed whether current protected areas (PAs) are adequate and whether they will maintain their effectiveness in the future. Also, we identified climatically stable areas that might work as refugia for an array of species.

Results: We observed that 84% and 87% of the bird species of Caatinga analyzed in this study will face high area losses in their predicted range distribution areas in future scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively). We also observed that the current PAs in Caatinga are ineffective in protecting these species in both present and future scenarios, even when considering all protection area categories. However, several suitable areas can still be allocated for conservation, where there are vegetation remnants and a high amount of species. Therefore, our study paves a path for conservation actions to mitigate current and future extinctions due to climate change by choosing more suitable protection areas.

Keywords: Conservation policy; Dry forest; Extinctions; Gap analysis; Protected areas; Climatic stability.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Birds*
Brazil
Climate Change*
Ecosystem
Fever

Grants and funding

Gabriela Silva Ribeiro Gonçalves and Pablo Vieira Cerqueira were supported by a Doctoral fellowship that also funded part of this study by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior-Brasil (CAPES)-Fund Code 001, and Pró-Reitoria de Pesquisa de Pós-Graduação (PROPESP/UFPA) for coast aid. André Felipe Alves de Andrade is funded by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) under process number 165174/ 2020-0. Daniel Paiva Silva received funding from the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico via a productivity grant (CNPq—Proc. Number: 304494/2019-4). Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnologico (CNPq) supported Marcos Pérsio Dantas Santos with research productivity fellowship (310976/2020-0). We also received funding from the Federal University of Pará (UFPA-PROPESP-PAPQ 01/2020-Qualified Publication Support Program). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.