Upslope plant species shifts in Mesoamerican cloud forests driven by climate and land use change

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ramirez-Barahona, Santiago; Cuervo-Robayo, Angela P.; Feeley, Kenneth J.; Ortiz-Rodriguez, Andres Ernesto; Vasquez-Aguilar, Antonio Acini; Francisco Ornelas, Juan; Rodriguez-Correa, Hernando
• 署名单位: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico; Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico; Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico; University of Miami; Instituto de Ecologia - Mexico; Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
• 刊物名称: SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0036-13385
• DOI: 10.1126/science.adn2559
• 发表日期: 2025-03-07
• 页码: 1058-1063
• 关键词: range shifts; impacts; extinction; responses

摘要

Global change drives biodiversity shifts worldwide, but these shifts are poorly understood in highly diverse tropical regions. In tropical mountains, plants are mostly expected to migrate upslope in response to warming. To assess this, we analyze shifts in elevation ranges of species in Mesoamerican cloud forests using three decades of species' occurrence records. Our findings reveal a mean upslope shift of 1.8 to 2.7 meters per year since 1979 driven by the upslope retreat of the less thermophilic montane species. These shifts are mostly accompanied by retreating lower and upper edges attributed to varying degrees of species' exposure to deforestation and climate change. Our results highlight the vulnerability of cloud forests under global change and the urgency to increase monitoring of species' responses.