Identifying sites that have unusual species combinations or species-poor sites with widely distributed species is crucial for establishing efficient conservation planning of high-priority conservation areas, such as the Brazilian Cerrado (CER) hotspot. Since the global climate change has led species to alter their distributional ranges, the distribution patterns of alpha/local and beta/among-site diversity may be different in future climate change scenarios. Using anurans as biological models, I tested how the distribution of richness gradients along the CER (i.e., alpha diversity) may change according to climate change scenarios by 2050 and 2070. Additionally, it was also assessed how patterns of beta diversity tend to spatially vary under the climate change effects. Point records of CER anurans (155 species) were compiled and species distribution models of each species were generated for each time slice (current, 2050, and 2070). Then, presence-absence matrices for each time slice were used to generate maps (~50 km grain size) of a) anuran richness gradients, by summing up the species occurrence at each grid; and b) beta-diversity distribution, by calculating the local contribution to beta diversity (LCBD) for each grid.
Results/Conclusions
The mean species richness per grid is expected to decrease in time (current – 2050: t = -12.947, p < 0.000; 2050 – 2070: t = -5.489, p < 0.000), although there are some grids in the northeastern CER expected to have gain in species. Spatially, the anuran richness gradients across the CER are quite similar among the different time slices, with the highest richness found in southeastern areas of the CER, and to a lesser extent, southwestern areas. Nonetheless, some specific regions are presumed to have decreased absolute richness values by 2050 and 2070, such as areas in the southern, southwestern, and western region of CER. Regarding the distribution of beta diversity, either time slices depict northern, southern, and southwestern areas as having unique anuran compositions. However, the climate change predictions identify a wider southern-southwestern area having high anuran beta diversity when compared to current predictions. On the other hand, predictions by 2050 and 2070 depict a smaller area in the north as having high beta diversity than the current predictions. The inclusion of alpha and beta diversity anuran distributions on systematic conservation planning can help establishing future efficient conservation planning of the CER hotspot under a climate change scenario.