Cargando…

Population-Based Evidence of Climate Change Adaptation in an Endangered Plant Endemic to a Biodiversity Hotspot

Climate change is expected to impact both the population structure and geographic distribution of plants. Species distribution models are widely used to assess range shifts and the vulnerability of plants to climate change. Despite the abundance of modeling studies, little is known about how existin...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Alarcón, Diego, Santos, David, Arroyo, Mary T. K.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10222059/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37653934
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants12102017
_version_ 1785049605408292864
author Alarcón, Diego
Santos, David
Arroyo, Mary T. K.
author_facet Alarcón, Diego
Santos, David
Arroyo, Mary T. K.
author_sort Alarcón, Diego
collection PubMed
description Climate change is expected to impact both the population structure and geographic distribution of plants. Species distribution models are widely used to assess range shifts and the vulnerability of plants to climate change. Despite the abundance of modeling studies, little is known about how existing populations respond to climate change. We investigated the demographic structure and vulnerability to climate change in Anemone moorei, a sub-shrub with a highly restricted distribution in a biodiversity hotspot. We improved the distribution knowledge through intensive field work. We conducted a census of stem length as a proxy for age for all known populations. We used ensemble forecasting to project distributions considering 10 future climate scenarios and developed a novel climate change vulnerability index for the species’ distribution. We found that the mean stem length decreases and the proportion of young plants increases, while the size of fruiting plants decreases as A. moorei faces greater climate change vulnerability. We interpret these results as evidence for the onset of recent adaptation to climate change, consisting of reduced adult longevity and an earlier onset of reproduction. As a result of these changes, the proportion of juveniles in the population increases.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-10222059
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2023
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-102220592023-05-28 Population-Based Evidence of Climate Change Adaptation in an Endangered Plant Endemic to a Biodiversity Hotspot Alarcón, Diego Santos, David Arroyo, Mary T. K. Plants (Basel) Article Climate change is expected to impact both the population structure and geographic distribution of plants. Species distribution models are widely used to assess range shifts and the vulnerability of plants to climate change. Despite the abundance of modeling studies, little is known about how existing populations respond to climate change. We investigated the demographic structure and vulnerability to climate change in Anemone moorei, a sub-shrub with a highly restricted distribution in a biodiversity hotspot. We improved the distribution knowledge through intensive field work. We conducted a census of stem length as a proxy for age for all known populations. We used ensemble forecasting to project distributions considering 10 future climate scenarios and developed a novel climate change vulnerability index for the species’ distribution. We found that the mean stem length decreases and the proportion of young plants increases, while the size of fruiting plants decreases as A. moorei faces greater climate change vulnerability. We interpret these results as evidence for the onset of recent adaptation to climate change, consisting of reduced adult longevity and an earlier onset of reproduction. As a result of these changes, the proportion of juveniles in the population increases. MDPI 2023-05-18 /pmc/articles/PMC10222059/ /pubmed/37653934 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants12102017 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Alarcón, Diego
Santos, David
Arroyo, Mary T. K.
Population-Based Evidence of Climate Change Adaptation in an Endangered Plant Endemic to a Biodiversity Hotspot
title Population-Based Evidence of Climate Change Adaptation in an Endangered Plant Endemic to a Biodiversity Hotspot
title_full Population-Based Evidence of Climate Change Adaptation in an Endangered Plant Endemic to a Biodiversity Hotspot
title_fullStr Population-Based Evidence of Climate Change Adaptation in an Endangered Plant Endemic to a Biodiversity Hotspot
title_full_unstemmed Population-Based Evidence of Climate Change Adaptation in an Endangered Plant Endemic to a Biodiversity Hotspot
title_short Population-Based Evidence of Climate Change Adaptation in an Endangered Plant Endemic to a Biodiversity Hotspot
title_sort population-based evidence of climate change adaptation in an endangered plant endemic to a biodiversity hotspot
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10222059/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37653934
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants12102017
work_keys_str_mv AT alarcondiego populationbasedevidenceofclimatechangeadaptationinanendangeredplantendemictoabiodiversityhotspot
AT santosdavid populationbasedevidenceofclimatechangeadaptationinanendangeredplantendemictoabiodiversityhotspot
AT arroyomarytk populationbasedevidenceofclimatechangeadaptationinanendangeredplantendemictoabiodiversityhotspot