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

MONTEMAYOR, S. I., SCATOLLINI, M.C, MELO, M.C.; DELLAPÉ, P., POCCO M. E., SCHEIBLER, E. E.; CARZOLA, C.G., DEL RÍO M. G, ROIG, S. A.

Buenos Aires

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

Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales "Bernardino Rivadavia" Buenos Aires, Argentina

Thepresent study uses Ecological Niche Models to recognize areas of high speciesrichness for three time periods (Pleistocene, Holocene and Present) in theAndean Region. Furthermore, we recovered those areas, refugia, that retainedsuitable climatic conditions enabling long-term persistence of the biodiversityand analyzed the evolution of the potential distributional area of each speciesto identify those that could be at risk by global warming. We analyzed 59insect 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 tomodel the past. We calculated Levin?s concentration metrics (implemented inENMTools) to only include species with a narrow niche breadth. Spatial biaseswere 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 wererecognized showing a high congruence with refugia proposed in previous studiesfor plants and vertebrates. From the 59 studied species, 31 showed a retractionof their potential distribution from Pleistocene to Present suggesting theirpreference to colder environments. As the effect of the global warming isparticularly evident in taxa of cold environments, the distribution of manyspecies from Andean Region would be strongly affected in the near future.