Projected impacts of climate and land use changes on the habitat of Atlantic Forest plants in Brazil

Aim: To provide novel evidence on the average impact of climate and land use changes on habitat suitability for tropical plants and to test previous conclusions on the relative importance of these two drivers in shaping future availability of habitat for tropical plant species.

Location: Brazil’s Atlantic Forest domain.

Time period: Plant occurrences recorded between 1960 and 2014. Baseline climate from 1960-2000 and land use from 2015. Projected scenarios of climate for 2041-2060 and land use for 2050.

Major taxa studied: Angiosperms.

Results: Our results suggest that climate change alone will, surprisingly, have only a modest negative impact on the mean habitat suitability, decreasing it by 2% (median = -5% to -7%, variation associated with scenarios). Land use change alone had a more consistent negative impact on habitat suitability, causing mean and median reductions of 4% to 6%. When the effects of climate and land use are combined, the mean habitat suitability was redu...