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Uneven patterns of palm species loss due to climate change are not driven by their sexual systems

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Abstract

As plants are sessile organisms, their response to environmental change may be mechanistically mediated by reproductive traits. The spatial segregation and physiological specialization of the sexes in dioicous plants, for instance, create mismatches in individual responses to environmental change. Conversely, the ability of self-fertilization circumvents the need for sexual partners and has been linked to the dominance of hermaphrodites in habitats with drought stress. Sexual systems (dioecy, hermaphroditism, monoecy, and polygamy) are key drivers of plant distribution, which raises the question of how they will respond to climate change. Here, we leverage the diversity of the sexual systems of palms (Arecaceae) to test their role on species distribution potential under climate change, comparing distribution patterns among biogeographic realms. Additionally, we evaluated how climate change will affect the palm richness patterns worldwide. We fitted ecological niche models to species’ occurrence and climate and soil data from present-day conditions, then projected onto climate change projections referred to years 2050 and 2090. We found that different sexual systems of palms respond similarly to climate change, with reductions in potential distribution expected for all sexual systems. Most species (354 out of 540) are expected to lose suitable areas, particularly in Neotropics, where palm richness is concentrated. Sharp richness loss is projected for Amazonia and Neotropical savanna – Cerrado, which can lose up to 50 and 40 palms, respectively. As sexual systems responded similarly to climate change, their role in species' response to climate change remains elusive. Our work does show that threats of climate change to global palm richness are ubiquitous, yet uneven geographically.

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Data availability

The species occurrence and climate data used in this work can be downloaded at Global Biodiversity Information Facility – GBIF and http://worldclim.org/version2, respectively. The edaphic variables can be downloaded at Regridded Harmonized World Soil Database v.1.2. The palm sexual system dataset used for the analyses is publicly available as Supporting Information—Appendix S1.

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Acknowledgements

CCS was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) of Brazil grant (#2020/09164-0). LS was supported by a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship (appl. # 454219) from the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). RGC was supported by Rede Cerrado CNPq/PPBio (project n°. 457406/2012-7) and PROCAD/CAPES (project no. 88881.068425/2014-01). CDB and APH were supported by the Swedish Research Council (2017-04980). RSO was supported by CNPQ productivity grant and NERC-FAPESP – grant (#2019/07773-1).

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CCS conceived and designed this study and wrote the main versions of the manuscript; LS performed ecological niche modelling. All authors provided critical feedback and helped to shape the research, analysis and manuscript.

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Correspondence to Cibele Cássia-Silva or Lilian P. Sales.

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The authors declare that there is no conflict.

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Communicated by Khoon Meng Wong.

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Supplementary file1 (DOCX 101 KB)

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Cássia-Silva, C., Sales, L.P., Hill, A.P. et al. Uneven patterns of palm species loss due to climate change are not driven by their sexual systems. Biodivers Conserv 32, 4353–4369 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-023-02700-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-023-02700-0

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