Abstract
The Chaco and Pampean provinces in the Neotropical region are highly disturbed by intensive forestry and livestock raising. This study is an integrative approach that aims to identify areas to be protected in these provinces. The distribution of 57 phytophagous coleoptera species was used, with a dataset comprising about 1500 georeferenced records. This information was used to analyze species richness and endemicity, build species distributional models projected to the Mid-Holocene, and perform a spatial conservation prioritization analysis of the landscape. Areas with high species richness, endemism areas, refugia (areas where the climate has remained favorable for most of the study species since the Mid-Holocene), and areas with a high conservation value of the landscape were recovered. Finally, all the evidence was considered together, and regions were recognized where the areas recovered following the previous four approaches were congruent. These areas are currently only partially protected and are regions where human activities pose a threat to biodiversity. All the evidence indicates that these are unique regions with features that make them particularly worthy of conservation. Integrating different approaches provides valuable information for recognizing areas that should be prioritized for biodiversity conservation.
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Data availability
The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available as it is currently being used for other research but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
This study was supported by the CONICET (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Argentina), and the Grant FonCyT (Fondo para la Investigación Científica y Tecnológica) PICT 2016-0739. We would like to thank Catalina Connon for copyediting the manuscript.
Funding
This work was supported by CONICET (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Argentina) and FonCyT (Fondo para la Investigación Científica y Tecnológica) PICT 2016-0739.
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SIM contributed to the study conception, design, data analysis, result interpretation and in the writing of the manuscript. SIB contributed in design and data analysis. MGR contributed to the study conception, material preparation, data collection, result interpretation and in the writing of the manuscript.
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10531_2022_2442_MOESM1_ESM.tif
Supplementary file1 (TIF 32904 kb)—Online Resource 1. Area where the study species are distributed; in blue, the provinces where these species are mainly distributed.
10531_2022_2442_MOESM2_ESM.xlsx
Supplementary file2 (XLSX 22 kb)—Online Resource 2. Table with SDM final number of records, settings, validation method, AUC value and MTP value.
10531_2022_2442_MOESM3_ESM.tif
Supplementary file3 (TIF 16699 kb)—Online Resource 3. Details of neighboring cells to those of maximum richness. Chocoan province (ChP), Pampean province (PP), Comechingones province (CP) Yunga province (YP).
10531_2022_2442_MOESM4_ESM.xlsx
Supplementary file4 (XLSX 22 kb)—Online Resource 4. Table with the species recorded in the nine cells with highest species richness. Indicated with an asterisk, in grey and in bold are the endemic species.
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Montemayor, S.I., Besteiro, S.I. & del Río, M.G. Integrating ecological and biogeographical tools for the identification of conservation areas in two Neotropical biogeographic provinces in Argentina based on phytophagous insects. Biodivers Conserv 31, 1969–1986 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-022-02442-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-022-02442-5