Climate vulnerability assessment of the Espeletia complex on Páramo sky islands in the northern Andes

Some of the largest impacts of climate change are expected in the environmentally heterogeneous and species rich high mountain ecosystems. Among those, the Neotropical alpine grassland above the tree line (c. 2,800 m), known as Páramo, is the fastest evolving biodiversity hotspot on earth, and one of the most threatened. Yet, predicting climate responses of typically slow-growing, long-lived plant linages in this unique high mountain ecosystem remains challenging. Here we coupled climate sensitivity modeling and adaptive potential inferences to efficiently assess climate vulnerability of Espeletia, Páramo’s most iconic, predominant and rapidly evolving plant complex. In order to estimate climate sensitivity, we first modeled the distribution of 28 Espeletia taxa under a niche conservatism scenario using altitude and five current (1970-2000) and future (2050 RCP 8.5) bioclimatic variables across 36 different Páramo complexes in the northern Andes (49 % of the world’s Páramo area). As an ...气候变化的最显著影响之一预计将出现在环境异质性强、物种丰富的高海拔山地生态系统中。其中，林线以上（约2800米）的新热带高山草原——帕拉莫（Páramo），是地球上进化速率最快的生物多样性热点，同时也是受威胁最严重的区域之一。然而，预测这一独特高海拔山地生态系统中典型生长缓慢、寿命悠长的植物谱系对气候的响应仍颇具挑战。本研究将气候敏感性建模与适应性潜力推断相结合，以高效评估帕拉莫最具标志性、占主导地位且演化迅速的埃斯佩莱提亚属（Espeletia）植物类群的气候脆弱性。为估算气候敏感性，我们首先以海拔及5组当前（1970-2000年）与未来（2050年典型浓度路径8.5）的生物气候变量为基础，在生态位保守情景下，对安第斯山脉北部36处不同的帕拉莫复合体（占全球帕拉莫面积的49%）中的28个埃斯佩莱提亚类群的分布进行了建模。作为一项……