Efectos del cambio climático sobre especies de plantas vasculares del sur de los Andes Centrales: un estudio en el noroeste de Argentina (NOA)

摘要

Effects of climate change on vascular plant species from the southernmost Central Andes: a case study in north-western Argentina (NOA). TheTropical Andes region has been indicated as a highly vulnerable region to climate change for its high diversity and endemism and its great altitudinalvariability. While there have been an important number of predictions about the changing climate in the region, few studies have evaluated the impact thiswill have on the distribution of species. In this paper, we estimated the effect of climate change on the distribution and conservation of endemic speciesfrom north-western Argentina (southernmost Central Andes) for the years 2050 and 2080 and under two future scenarios (A2 and Bl). According to theresults, from the present to 2080, climate change in the region will cause a single extinction event, and changes in all distributional ranges of endemicspecies. Moreover, a widespread displacement of endemic species towards higher altitudes and subtropical areas is predicted, indicating that theimpacts of future climate change will be greater for low and less arid ecoregions. Moreover, the NOA system of protected areas would not be able torepresent adequately the endemic flora in the future under any scenario, according to the established target in the present study. These results highlightthe need to concentrate conservation efforts on those species and ecosystems identified here as the most vulnerable in order to ensure the futureconservation of the endemic flora of the most southern part of the Central Andes.