Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Extreme climate refugia: a case study of wild relatives of cacao (Theobroma cacao) in Colombia

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Biodiversity and Conservation Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Identification of global climate refugia for biodiversity relies mainly on long term climate cycles data. However, information on short term contemporary refugia of climate extremes for native genetic resources of agriculture such as crop wild relatives in tropical regions is limited. Understanding the threats of current extreme climate is a valuable strategy for the mitigation of global changes. The main objective is to identify extreme climate refugia of crop wild relatives of cacao (Theobroma cacao) in Colombia (South America) based on a contemporary climate dataset of 30 years (1980–2010), and secondly, to assess threats caused by deforestation in the Amazon region. We found that only one-third of the most climatically suitable habitat remained stable, comparing current average climate of 30 years against extreme climates of the same period, and therefore considered those areas the best candidates for current extreme climate refugia of wild cacao in the country. Small changes (1.0%) in extreme precipitation, in just 30 years, showed a decrease of suitable habitat on 70.2% of the habitat for wild cacao in the centre of origin in the Colombia Amazon, and 80.8% in the Pacific region, which is the most important area of wild cacao endemism in the world. In addition, we estimated that at the current rate of deforestation in the Amazon region (0.7% annually), the areas with the most climatically stable climate, or refugia, for wild cacao could be reduced by half in the next 50 years. Considering the importance of cacao as a crop worldwide, the identification of refugia for conservation of wild cacao genetic resources is a necessary step towards mitigating climate impacts on agriculture.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

Full species datasets for the CacaoBIO expeditions are published and available at GBIF.org. https://www.gbif.org/dataset/f91c043a-2a56-4e6e-87b6-2b71a4881fb6 and https://www.gbif.org/dataset/8183e6f8-b995-4266-b9bb-96fb784d353d. Other complementary data and R code would be available upon request to the authors.

References

  • Agrosavia (2014) Establecimiento de la base de datos para caracterización de la variabilidad climática con fines agroclimáticos, Mosquera (Cundinamarca): s.n

  • Alzate Velásquez DF (2017) RegRAIN: Method RegRAIN (MLR, Spline and IDW) for spatial interpolation of daily rainfall and air temperature data from climate stations. R package version 0.1.0

  • Alzate Velásquez DF, Araujo Carillo GA, Rojas Barbosa EO, Gomez Latorre DA (2018) Interpolación Regnie para lluvia y temperatura en las regiones Andina, Caribe y Pacífica de Colombia. Colombia Forestal 21:102–118

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Arevalo-Gardini E, Meinhardt L, Zuniga LC, Arevalo-Gardini J (2019) Genetic identity and origin of “Piura Porcelana”—a fine-flavored traditional variety of cacao (Theobroma cacao) from the Peruvian Amazon. Tree Genet Genome 15:11

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Armenteras D, Sneider L, Davalos LM (2018) Fires in protected areas reveal unforeseen costs of Colombian peace. Nat Ecol Evol 3:20–23

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Armenteras D, Negret P, Melgareja LF, Lakes TM (2019) Curb land grabbing to save the Amazon. Nat Ecol Evol 3:1497

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ackerley DD, Kling MW, Clark ML, Papper P (2020) Topoclimates, refugia, and biotic responses to climate change. Front Ecol Environ 18:288–297

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barbosa L, Hernandez EJ, Franca I, Emil J (2019) First records of Theobroma speciosum fruits dispersion. Rev Acad Colomb Cienc Exact Fis Nat 43:518–520

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bertoldi W, Gurnell A, Surian N, Tockner K, Zanoni L, Ziliani L, Zolezzi G (2009) Understanding reference processes: linkages between river flows, sediment dynamics and vegetated landforms along the Tagliamento River, Italy. River Res Appl 25:501–516

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bertoldi W, Piégay H, Buffin-Bélanger T, Graham D, Rice S (2012) Fluvial remote sensing for science and management. Applications of close-range imagery in river research. Wiley, Chichester, pp 341–366

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown SC, Wigley TML, Otto-Bliesner BL, Rahbek C (2020) Persistent quaternary climate refugia are hospices for biodiversity in the anthropocene. Nat Clim Change 10:244–248

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barrows CW, Ramirez AR, Sweet LC, Morelli TL (2020) Validating climate-change refugia: empirical bottom-up approaches to support management actions. Front Ecol Environ 18:298–306

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baker R (1953) The anglo -colombian cacao collecting expedition. Cacao Res. Rep. 1953, 8–29, Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture, Trinidad

  • Benedict JA (1988) Geographical variation and population biology in wild Theobroma cacao. Doctor of Philosophy Thesis, University of Edinburgh, UK

  • Bunn C (2019) Climate-smart Cocoa in Central America and the Caribbean. International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Cali, Co. p 13

  • Challinor AJ, Watson J, Lobell DB, Howden SM (2014) A meta-analysis of crop yield under climate change and adaptation. Nat Clim Change 4:287–291

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clerici N, Salazar C, Pardo-Diaz C, Jiggins CD (2018) Peace in Colombia is a critical moment for neotropical connectivity and conservation: save the northern Andes-Amazon biodiversity bridge. Conserv Lett 12:e12594

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • CONPES (2021) 4021: política nacional para el control de la deforestación y la gestión sostenible de los bosques. Colombia. https://idm.presidencia.gov.co/Documents/210108-Conpes-4021.pdf. Accessed 15 Nov 2021

  • Cuatrecasas J (1964) Cacao and its allies: a taxonomic revision of the genus Theobroma. Contrib. U.S. Natl Herb 35:379–614

    Google Scholar 

  • Davalos E, Davalos LM (2020) Social investment and smallholder coca cultivation in Colombia. J Dev Stud 56:1118–1140

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dardengo JD, Rossi AA, Silva CJ, Silveira MS (2017) Spatial structure of Theobroma subincanum Mart. and Theobroma speciosum Willd. ex Spreng. in the parque nacional do Juruena, Mato Grosso state, Brazil. Revista Arvore 41:e410101

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De Almeida J, Tezara W, Herrera A (2016) Physiological responses to drought and experimental water deficit and waterlogging of four clones of cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) selected for cultivation in Venezuela. Agric Water Manage 171:80–88

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De Vicente MC, Guzman FA, Engels JMM, Rao RV (2006) Genetic characterization and its use in decision making for the conservation of crop germplasm. In: Ruane J, Sonnino A (eds) The role of biotechnology in exploring and protecting agricultural genetic resources. FAO, Rome, pp 129–138

    Google Scholar 

  • Dempewolf H, Eastwood RJ, Guarino L, Khoury CK (2014) Adapting agriculture to climate change: a global initiative to collect, conserve, and use crop wild relatives. Agroecol Sustain Food Syst 38:369–377

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diaz RO, Hernandez MS (2020) Theobromas de la Amazonia Colombiana: una alternativa saludable. Información Tecnológica 31:3–10

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Easterling DR, Meehl GA, Parmesan C, Changnon SA (2000) Climate extremes: observations, modeling, and impacts. Science 289:2068–2074

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Espinoza JC, Chavez S, Ronchail J, Junquas C (2015) Rainfall hotspots over the southern tropical Andes: spatial distribution, rainfall intensity and relations with large-scale atmospheric circulation. Water Resour 51:3459–3475

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gomes VHF, Guimaraes Vieiria IC, Salomao RP, Steege H (2019) Amazonian tree species threatened by deforestation and climate change. Nat Clim Change 9:547–553

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • González-Orozco CE, Sanchez Galan AA, Ramos PE, Yockteng R (2020a) Exploring the diversity and distribution of crop wild relatives of cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) in Colombia. Genet Resour Crop Evol 67:2071–2085

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • González-Orozco CE, Porcel M, Velazquez A, Orduz Rodriguez JO (2020b) Extreme climate variability weakens a major tropical agricultural hub. Ecol Indic 111:106015

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • GFW. Global forest watch (GFW 2.0.). www.globalforestwatch.org. Accessed 15 Nov 2021

  • Hebbar KB, Apshara E, Chandran KP, Vara Prasad PV (2020) Effect of elevated CO2, high temperature, and water deficit on growth, photosynthesis, and whole plant water use efficiency of cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.). Int J Biometeorol 64:47–57

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hutchins A, Tamargo A, Bailey C, Kim Y (2015) Assessment of climate change impacts on cocoa production and approaches to adaptation and mitigation: a contextual view of Ghana and Costa Rica. Int Dev Stud, 1–22

  • Instituto de Hidrología, meteorología y estudios Ambientales -IDEAM (1981–2010) Portal de Clima para Colombia. Promedios climatológicos 1981–2010 en Colombia. http://www.ideam.gov.co/web/tiempo-y-clima/clima

  • Instituto de Hidrología, meteorología y estudios Ambientales -IDEAM (2018–2019) Boletín de deforestación temprana de deforestación No 17, 18 and 21. Cuarto trimestre (octubre-diciembre)

  • Jarvis A, Lane A, Hijmans R (2008) The effect of climate change on crop wild relatives. Agr Ecosyst Environ 126:13–23

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jarvis A, Loboguerrero AM, Martinez-Barón D, Prager S (2019) Situación rural de América Latina y el Caribe con 2 grados de calentamiento. Revista Compromiso Social 1:91–115

    Google Scholar 

  • Keppel G, Van Niel KP, Wardell-Johnson GW, Yates CJ (2012) Refugia: identifying and understanding safe havens for biodiversity under climate change. Glob Ecol Biogeogr 21:393–404

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keghe M, Mulua SI, Armathee AJ, Ayonghe SN (2013) Impacts of climate change and climate variability on Cocoa (Theobroma cacao) yields in meme division, south west region of Cameroon. J Cameroon Acad Sci 11:39–48

    Google Scholar 

  • Läderach P, Martinez-Valle A, Schroth G, Castro N (2013) Predicting the future climate suitability for cocoa farming of the world’s leading producer countries, Ghana and Cote de I´lvoire. Clim Change 119:841–854

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lahive F, Hadley P, Daymond A (2019) The physiological responses of cacao to the environment and the implications for climate change resilience. A review. Agron Sustain Agron 39:5

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lahive F, Handley LR, Hadley P, Daymond AJ (2021) Climate change impacts on cacao: genotypic variation in responses of mature cacao to elevated CO2 and water deficit. Agronomy 11(5):818

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Levis C, Flores BM, Moreira PA, Luize BG, Alves RP, Franco-Moraes J, Lins J, Konings E, Peña-Claros M, Bongers F, Costa FRC, Clement CR (2018) How people domesticated amazonian forests. Front Ecol Evol 5:171

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maxted N, Kell S, Toledo A, Dulloo E, Heywood V, Hogkin T, Hunter D, Guarino L, Jarvis A, Ford-Lloyd B (2010) A global approach to crop wild relative conservation: securing the gene pool for food and agriculture. Kew Bull 65:561–576

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mora C, Frazier AG, Longman RJ, Dacks RS (2013) The projected timing of climate departure from recent variability. Nature 502:184–188

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morelli TL, Barrows CW, Ramirez AR, Cartwright JM (2020) Climate-change refugia: biodiversity in the slow lane. Front Ecol Environ 18:228–234

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Motamayor JC, Lachenaud P, da Silva e Mota JW, Loor R (2008) Geographic and genetic population differentiation of the Amazonian chocolate tree (Theobroma cacao L). PLoS ONE 3:e3311

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Murillo-Sandoval PJ, Gjerdseth E, Correa-Ayram C, Wrathall D, Van Den Hoek J, Davalos LM, Kennedy R (2021) No peace for the forest: rapid, widespread land changes in the Andes-Amazon region following the Colombian civil war. Glob Environ Change 69:102283

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nwakanma DC, Pillay M, Okoli BE, Tenkouano A (2003) Sectional relationships in the genus Musa L. inferred from the PCR-RFLP of organelle DNA sequences. Theor Appl Genet 107:805–856

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Patiño VM (2002) Historia y dispersión de los frutales nativos del neotrópico. Cali, Colombia. Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical CIAT 326, p 665

  • Pérez-Escobar OA, Lucas E, Jaramillo J, Monro A (2019) The origin and diversification of the hyperdiverse flora in the chocó biogeographic region. Front Plant Sci 10:1328

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Phillips SJ, Dudik M, Schapire RE (2021) Maxent software for modeling species niches and distributions (version 3.4.1). http://biodiversityinformatics.amnh.org/open_source/maxent/. Accessed 1 Oct 2020

  • QGIS Development Team (2009) QGIS geographic information system. Open source geospatial foundation. http://qgis.org

  • Ramírez-Villegas J, Salazar M, Jarvis A, Navarro-Racines CE (2012) A way forward on adaptation to climate change in Colombian agriculture: perspectives toward 2050. Clim Change 115:611–628

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ranjitkar S, Sujakhu NM, Lu Y, Wang Q (2016) Climate modelling for agroforestry species selection in Yunnan Province, China. Environ Model Softw 75:263–272

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Richardson JE, Whitlock BA, Meerow AW, Madrinan S (2015) The age of chocolate: a diversification history of Theobroma and Malvaceae. Front Ecol Evol 3:120

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ruane AC, Goldberg R, Chryssanthacopoulos J (2015) AgMIP climate forcing datasets for agricultural modeling: merged products for gap-filling and historical climate series estimation. Agric for Meteorol 200:233–248

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ruf F, Schroth G, Doffangui K (2015) Climate change, cocoa migrations and deforestation in West Africa: what does the past tell us about the future? Sustain Sci 10:101

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Silva BM (2013) Structure and spatial distribution patterns of two species of Theobroma in a permanent conservation park in the northern state of Mato Grosso. Enciclopédia Biosfera 9:2789–2795

    Google Scholar 

  • Schultes RE (1968) A synopsis of the genus Herrania. J Arnold Arbor 39:217–278

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shepard, D (1968) A two-dimensional interpolation function for irregularly spaced data. In: Proceedings of the 1968 ACM national conference, pp. 517–524. https://doi.org/10.1145/800186.810616.

  • Susilo AW (2018) Yield performance of the promising cocoa hybrids (Theobroma cacao L.) at dry climate condition. Pelita Perkebunan (a Coffee and Cocoa Research Journal) 34(1):11–22

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ter Steege H, Vaessen RW, Cárdenas-López D, Sabatier D, Antonelli A, Mota de Oliveira S, Pitman NCA, Møller Jørgensen P, Salomão RP (2016) The discovery of the Amazonian tree flora with an updated checklist of all known tree taxa. Sci Rep 6:29549

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Trisos CH, Merow C, Pigot AL (2020) The projected timing of abrupt ecological disruption from climate change. Nature 580:496–501

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Yockteng R, Rodriguez Medina CD, Rojas S (2017) Base de datos espacial de cacao silvestre. V1. Agrosavia. Tibaitata.

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria (AGROSAVIA) for providing funding. The authors also acknowledge the following funding source: Departamento administrativo de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación de Colombia (COLCIENCIAS). Colombia BIO program financed the project Expedición Cacao Colombia BIO under the special cooperative Agreement No FP44842-142-2018 between Agrosavia, COLCIENCIAS and Universidad de Los Andes. The authors would like to thank collaborators from the Colombian Amazon Research Institute (SINCHI) for taxonomic identifications, Andrés Rico for his advice on the deforestation datasets Diego Alzate for developing the climate variability dataset and Salvador Rojas and Jessica Moreno for contributing to develop the species distributional dataset version1. We are grateful to all the communities we visited along the Caguán and Caquetá rivers and in La Victoria, Chocó. We thank Mónica Páramo for producing the photographic and video material during the expeditions.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria- AGROSAVIA, Centro de Investigación La Libertad, Km 14 vía Puerto López, Villavicencio, Meta, Colombia

    Carlos E. González-Orozco & Mario Porcel

  2. Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria – AGROSAVIA, Centro de Investigación Palmira, Diagonal a la intersección de la carrera 36ª con calle 23, Palmira, Valle del Cauca, Colombia

    Caren Rodriguez-Medina

  3. Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria – AGROSAVIA, Centro de Investigación Tibaitatá, Km 14 vía a Mosquera, Bogotá, Cundinamarca, Colombia

    Roxana Yockteng

  4. Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, UMR-CNRS 7205, 75005, Paris, France

    Roxana Yockteng

Authors
  1. Carlos E. González-Orozco
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Mario Porcel
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Caren Rodriguez-Medina
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Roxana Yockteng
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

CEG-O: study design, data collection, spatial analyses, writing of first draft; MP: study concept, data collection, statistical analyses, writing of manuscript; RY: data collection, writing of manuscript; CR: data collection, writing of manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Carlos E. González-Orozco.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Communicated by Daniel Sanchez Mata.

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary file1 (DOCX 21544 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

González-Orozco, C.E., Porcel, M., Rodriguez-Medina, C. et al. Extreme climate refugia: a case study of wild relatives of cacao (Theobroma cacao) in Colombia. Biodivers Conserv 31, 161–182 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-021-02327-z

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-021-02327-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation