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Conserving the Brazilian semiarid (Caatinga) biome under climate change

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Abstract

The Caatinga is a semiarid biome of the northeast of Brazil with only 1 % of its territory currently conserved. The biome’s biodiversity is highly threatened due to exposure to land conversion for agricultural and cattle ranch. Climate forecasts predict increases in aridity, which could pose additional threats to the biome’s biodiversity. Here, we ask if the remnants of natural vegetation in Caatinga biome, where endemic terrestrial vertebrate species occur, are likely to retain more climatic suitability under climate change scenarios than other less pristine areas of the biome. In order to assess changes in climate suitability across individual species ranges, ensemble forecasting was used based on seven bioclimatic envelope models, three atmosphere–ocean general circulation models, and two greenhouse emission gas scenarios for 2020, 2050, and 2080. We found that most species will gain climatic suitability in the natural vegetation remnants of the Caatinga. Such gains are even greater than the expected to occur within random sets of areas with size similar to the natural vegetation remnants. Our results suggest that natural vegetation remnants will likely play a role of climate refuges for endemic vertebrate species, so efforts should be concentrated in these regions.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to two anonymous reviewers, and to the cooperation project of Fundação para Ciência e a Tecnologia and Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (FCT-CAPES, Portugal–Brasil). GO is supported by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) doctoral fellowship (Proc. No. 552961/2008-6), and work by TFR and JAFDF on climate change and BEMs have been continuously supported by CNPq productivity grants and by the “Rede Nacional de Mudanças Climáticas” of INPE. GO was sponsored by CAPES-Balcão (Proc. No. 5201-09-8) while visiting the Universidade de Évora, Rui Nabeiro Biodiversity Chair, Portugal. DA was supported by a postdoctoral studentship (SFRH/BPD/51512/2011) awarded by FCT. Research by MBA, JAFDF, and TLFVBR is supported by the FCT Range Shift project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratório de Ecologia Teórica e Síntese, Departamento de Ecologia, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas I, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Caixa Postal 131, Goiânia, GO, CEP 74001-970, Brazil

    Guilherme de Oliveira, Thiago Fernado Rangel & José Alexandre Felizola Diniz-Filho

  2. Programa de Pós-Graduação Ecologia e Evolução, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Caixa Postal 131, Goiânia, GO, CEP 74001-970, Brazil

    Guilherme de Oliveira

  3. Integrative Biology and Global Change Group, Department of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology, National Museum of Natural History, CSIC, 28006, Madrid, Spain

    Miguel Bastos Araújo

  4. Rui Nabeiro Biodiversity Chair, CIBIO, University of Évora, Largo dos Colegiais, 7000, Évora, Portugal

    Miguel Bastos Araújo & Diogo Alagador

  5. Department of Biology, Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, University of Copenhagen, 2100, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Miguel Bastos Araújo

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  1. Guilherme de Oliveira
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  2. Miguel Bastos Araújo
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  3. Thiago Fernado Rangel
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  4. Diogo Alagador
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  5. José Alexandre Felizola Diniz-Filho
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Correspondence to Guilherme de Oliveira.

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de Oliveira, G., Araújo, M.B., Rangel, T.F. et al. Conserving the Brazilian semiarid (Caatinga) biome under climate change. Biodivers Conserv 21, 2913–2926 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-012-0346-7

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