Predicting the spatial and temporal effects of climate change on the south american lizard genus Teius (Squamata: Teiidae) Ignacio Minoli Corresp., 1 , Pier Cacciali 2, 3, 4 , Mariana Morando 1 , Luciano Javier Avila 1 1 IPEEC-CONICET, Puerto Madryn, Chubut, Argentina 2 Senckenberg Forschungsinstitut und Naturmuseum, Frankfurt, Germany 3 Instituto de Investigación Biológica del Paraguay, Asunción, Paraguay 4 Asociación Guyra Paraguay, Asunción, Paraguay Corresponding Author: Ignacio Minoli Email address: [email protected] Background. The consequences of past or future climate change have been studied in many physical and biological systems, and their effects could change the ecology and spatial distribution of suitable areas for a wide variety of organisms. Methods. We analyzed the environmental and geographic space of the current suitable area and we projected these conditions into Mid-Holocene and 2050 RCP8.5 scenarios. Through these projections, we assessed and quantified whether climate change would affect the distribution and size of environmental and geographic space for lizard species of the genus Teius. Results. The potentially suitable geographic area for the Mid-Holocene decreased for T. oculatus (- 29.55%) and for T. teyou (-6.82%), but for T. suquiensis it was inferred as a larger suitable area (+26%). For the future scenario all species showed a decrease in the potentially suitable area compared to the present (T. oculatus = -9.30%, T. teyou = -0.79%, T. suquiensis = -37.58%). The first 3 PCA axes in the environmental space explained more than 86% of the variation for each temporal scenario for all species. The higher contribution for PC1-2 in Mid-Holocene and Present were mostly related to temperature and for PC3 with altitude variables: and for the 2050 scenario were temperature for PC1, precipitation for PC2 and altitude-temperature for PC3. The hypervolumen distance for T. oculatus from the Present scenario to Mid-Holocene = 67.80 and for 2050 = 309.10; for T. teyou to Mid-Holocene = 95.67 and for 2050 = 442.67; for T. suquiensis to Mid-Holocene = 275.57 and for 2050 = 248.07. Discussion. These results suggest that current geographic space versus the other temporal forecast of all Teius species, showed different specific magnitude changes in their potentially suitable areas. This work illustrates how ectothermic organisms might have to face major changes in their environmental and geographic space as a consequence of the effect of climate changes. PeerJ Preprints | https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26560v1 | CC BY 4.0 Open Access | rec: 22 Feb 2018, publ: 22 Feb 2018 1 Predicting the spatial and tempnral effects nf climate change nn the sngth american lizard 2 gengs Teius (Sqgamata: Teiidae) 3 Ignacio Minoli 1*, Pier Cacciali 2, 3, 4, Mariana Morando 1, Luciano Javier Avila 1 4 1 IPEEC, CONICET, Boulevard Almiranoe Brown 2915, Pueroo Madryn (Chubuo), Argenoina. 5 2 Senckenberg Forschungsinsoiouo und Naourmuseum, Senckenberganlage 25, 60325 Frankfuro 6 a.M., Germany. 7 3 Insoiouoo de Invesoigación Biológica del Paraguay, Del Escudo 1607, 1425 Asunción, Paraguay. 8 4 Asociación Guyra Paraguay, Av. Cnel. Carlos Bóveda, Parque Asunción Verde, Viñas Cué, 9 Paraguay. 10 * Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected] PeerJ Preprints | https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26560v1 | CC BY 4.0 Open Access | rec: 22 Feb 2018, publ: 22 Feb 2018 11 ABSTRACT 12 Backgrngnd. The consequences of past or future climate change have been studied in many 13 physical and biological systems, and their effects could change the ecology and spatial 14 distribution of suitable areas for a wide variety of organisms. 15 Methnds. We analyzed the environmental and geographic space of the current suitable area and 16 we projected these conditions into Mid-Holocene and 2050 RCP8.5 scenarios. Through these 17 projections, we assessed and quantified whether climate change would affect the distribution and 18 size of environmental and geographic space for lizard species of the genus Teius. 19 Resglts. The potentially suitable geographic area for the Mid-Holocene decreased for T. oculaous 20 (-29.55%) and for T. oeyou (-6.82%), but for T. suquiensis it was inferred as a larger suitable area 21 (+26%). For the future scenario all species showed a decrease in the potentially suitable area 22 compared to the present (T. oculaous = -9.30%, T. oeyou = -0.79%, T. suquiensis = -37.58%). The 23 first 3 PCA axes in the environmental space explained more than 86% of the variation for each 24 temporal scenario for all species. The higher contribution for PC1-2 in Mid-Holocene and Present 25 were mostly related to temperature and for PC3 with altitude variables: and for the 2050 scenario 26 were temperature for PC1, precipitation for PC2 and altitude-temperature for PC3. The 27 hypervolumen distance for T. oculaous from the Present scenario to Mid-Holocene = 67.80 and 28 for 2050 = 309.10; for T. oeyou to Mid-Holocene = 95.67 and for 2050 = 442.67; for T. suquiensis 29 to Mid-Holocene = 275.57 and for 2050 = 248.07. 30 Discgssinn. These results suggest that current geographic space versus the other temporal 31 forecast of all Teius species, showed different specific magnitude changes in their potentially 32 suitable areas. This work illustrates how ectothermic organisms might have to face major changes 33 in their environmental and geographic space as a consequence of the effect of climate changes. 34 Keywnrds: niche modeling, climate change, Mid-Holocene, 2050 scenario, reptiles, Teius. PeerJ Preprints | https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26560v1 | CC BY 4.0 Open Access | rec: 22 Feb 2018, publ: 22 Feb 2018 35 INTRODUCTION 36 The concept of ecological niche has long been considered to be an important factor in the species' 37 distribution range and was defined as a set of environmental conditions that maintains each taxon 38 within a certain geographic range, modulated by physiological restrictions under which they can 39 prosper (Grinnell, 1917; James et al., 1984). Numerous works studied this concept in recent 40 decades from the theoretical point of view (Soberón & Peterson, 2005; Peterson et al., 2011) and 41 in general they agree that it includes certain components and they are commonly summarized in 42 the BAM diagram. The BAM framework (Soberón & Peterson, 2005) for a species includes a 43 region with a suitable set of abiotic factors (A) and this represents the geographic expression of 44 the fundamental niche (FN), a region with appropriate biotic interactions (B), a region 45 "accessible" to colonization (M) and a region equivalent to the distribution of the species (P) 46 which is the intersection of the three identified regions (P = A ∩ B ∩ M). The niche concept is 47 commonly separated into two major classes: Grinnellian and Eltonian niches. The Grinnellian 48 niche (Grinnell, 1917; Austin, 2002; Soberón, 2007) is defined mainly by abiotic and non- 49 interactive variables, while biotic interactions and resources define the Eltonian niche (Elton, 50 1927; Vandermeer, 1972; Leibold, 1995). Usually, these concepts and theoretical frameworks are 51 not taken into account by researchers that model species’ niches (Townsend Peterson & Soberón, 52 2012). 53 In the past decades, a large number of scientists estimated spatial distributions by calculating 54 and quantifying "environmental" or "ecological" niches (Colwell & Rangel, 2009; Soberón & 55 Nakamura, 2009), mostly through mechanistic and correlative models. The analysis of the niche 56 through mechanistic models allows to evaluate a physiological limitation and to project it into the 57 geographic space (Sinervo et al., 2010), while the correlative models perform correlations 58 between several variables and the distribution of the studied organism (Owens et al., 2013). Both PeerJ Preprints | https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26560v1 | CC BY 4.0 Open Access | rec: 22 Feb 2018, publ: 22 Feb 2018 59 types of models have advantages and disadvantages, but correlative models can analyze habitat 60 suitability considering several environmental variables together. Habitat suitability modeling can 61 be subjected to spatial analysis such as area calculation (Di Marco et al., 2016), importance of 62 variables in the geographic distribution (Marino et al., 2011) and interaction of the variables with 63 each other (Hirzel & Le Lay, 2008). 64 The study of present habitat suitability is an effective method to infer the spatial interactions 65 and shifts of organisms with past and future climate changes (Peterson et al., 2011). Niche 66 modeling analysis is frequently used in research dealing with species distribution, and is applied 67 to assess geographic ranges within different evolution scenarios (Wiens & Graham, 2005; 68 Warren, Glor & Turelli, 2008); as a tool for biodiversity conservation (Hortal et al., 2015; Jones 69 et al., 2016; Tulloch et al., 2016), or to predict distributions under diverse climate scenarios 70 events (Barrows, 2011; Anderson, 2013). Given the evidence of impact of climate change on 71 biodiversity and on the fate of species’ survivorship, there was an eruption of papers focused on 72 this topic, and many scientists made simulation models and predictions based on the climate shift 73 scenarios (Cane, 2005; Parker, 2010). Several resources, software and algorithms were produced 74 in the last two decades to perform modeling and simulations (Thuiller et al., 2009; Di Cola et al., 75 2017) using climatic layers (e.g., Lima-Ribeiro et al., 2015) to assess the effect of climate change 76 on species’ distribution. 77 The abiotic factors can determine regional and local patterns by which communities of 78 organisms are assembled, and the resulting degree of similarity or difference between localities 79 with similar environments (Chase, 2003). Studies on changes of the potential suitable abiotic area 80 for a species, have been mostly focused on the geographic space and to a lesser extent in the 81 environmental space (Soberón & Nakamura, 2009; Owens et al., 2013).