Climatic Variables Differentially Influence Neotropical Plant Species of Conservation Concern

Abstract

Knowing how and to what extent environmental parameters affect threatened species facilitates the understanding of their specific microhabitat requirements. In this study, we examined the response patterns of four threatened tropical plant species to variations in temperature, precipitation, and physiographic variables, and analyzed the relative contributions of environmental variables to the observed distributions of the species. The studied species are Bursera coyucensis, Cryosophila argentea, Guatteria anomala, and Vatairea lundellii and are cataloged into specific risk categories in the Mexican Official Standard NOM-059-SEMARNAT. Our findings suggest differences in ranges of temperature and precipitation (for example, C. argentea exhibited narrower ranges compared to G. anomala and V. lundellii in precipitation) and similarity in ranges of slope across species distributions. We also found that most species distributions respond non-linearly to variations in environmental variables. These results contribute to defining the environmental spaces of these species. The partial and combined effects of climatic variables, and the range of environmental distributions reported here, have intrinsic implications for the adaptation capacity, plasticity, and survival of these species to environmental variation. This information could be useful to promote conservation activities such as the creation of microhabitats with optimal environmental preferences through sustainable silviculture.