CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

The Andean cloud forests (Yungas) are extremely diverse and rich in endemics. The Andean alder (Alnus acuminata Kunth) is a keystone early colonizer species restricted to the upper altitudinal zone of the Yungas (1500-3000 masl). Its key ecological role is due to the fact that A. acuminata is among the very few tree species capable of associating with both ectomycorrhizal and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi as well as with nitrogen-fixing bacteria. While the generally negative effects of climate change on the potential distributions of several cloud forest animal and plant species have been studied, there is very little known on how the distribution of fungal species may shift in response to the predicted scenarios. In this study, we 1) estimated the current distribution of A. acuminata in the Tucuman-Bolivian Yungas using Species Distribution Modelling methods; 2) compared soil fungal diversity in the different altitudinal zones of the Yungas based on a DNA metabarcoding dataset; and 3) selected indicator fungal taxa that were significantly associated with alder-dominated montane cloud forests sites. In addition, we predicted the potential distribution of A. acuminata and the associated fungal indicator species for 2050 based on the available climate change scenarios. Current and future (2050) habitat models were developed based on A. acuminata occurrence data from GBIF using the package biomod2 in R with an ensemble of five different algorithms and were used to develop habitat model for current situation and 2050 scenario. In addition, the models predicted susbtantial loss of the currently suitable area by ca. 2050. Although A. acuminata will likely colonize some new areas, the area with a suitable climate will likely be smaller in 2050 than at present.