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 reduced by 4% (median = -9%
to -11%). Main conclusions:  The combined impacts of climate and
land use changes were substantial, although smaller than expected. Habitat
suitability decreased for most species, but it increased substantially for
some species, suggesting that the distribution of impacts across species
is markedly right skewed. The impacts were typically detrimental to
small-ranged species and neutral or beneficial to widespread species. Land
use change rather than climate change will likely cause more losses to the
habitat of Atlantic Forest plant species within the next several decades.