The fate of the endemic insects of the Andean Region under the effect of global warming

MONTEMAYOR, SARA; SCATOLLINI, S.I; MELO, MARÍA CECILIA; DELLAPE, PABLO; POCCO, M.E; SCHEIBLER, ERICA; CAZORLA, C.G; DEL RÍO, MARÍA GUADALUPE; ROIG JUÑENT, SERGIO

Buenos Aires

Congreso; 35th Annual Meeting of the Willi Hennig Society and XII Reunión Argentina de Cladística y Biogeografía.; 2016

Willi Hennig Society

The present study uses Ecological Niche Models to recognize areas of high species richness for three time periods (Pleistocene, Holocene and Present) in theAndean Region. Furthermore, we recovered those areas, refugia, that retained suitable climatic conditions enabling long-term persistence of the biodiversity and analyzed the evolution of the potential distributional area of each species to identify those that could be at risk by global warming. We analyzed 59 insect species of five orders (Coleoptera, Diptera, Heteroptera, Odonata, andOrthoptera) endemic of the Andean Region. We used Maxent v3.3.3k., over 1,070 records and  the 19 WorldClim bioclimatic variables of (2.5 minutes resolution) to build niche models; and CCSM4 General Circulation Model to model the past. We calculated Levin?s concentration metrics (implemented inENMTools) to only include species with a narrow niche breadth. Spatial biases were filtered using Moran?s I test at multiple distance classes (SAM v4.0.).Models were validated using the jackknife methodology designed for small datasets.Three lowland and one high mountain refugia were recognized showing a high congruence with refugia proposed in previous studiesfor plants and vertebrates. From the 59 studied species, 31 showed a retraction of their potential distribution from Pleistocene to Present suggesting theirpreference to colder environments. As the effect of the global warming is particularly evident in taxa of cold environments, the distribution of many species from Andean Region would be strongly affected in the near future.