Abstract

MARTINEZ SIFUENTES, José Ángel et al. Environmental suitability areas for [Bouteloua curtipendula (Michx.) Torr.] in Mexico due to climate change effect. Rev. mex. de cienc. pecuarias [online]. 2020, vol.11, suppl.2, pp.49-62.  Epub June 30, 2020. ISSN 2448-6698.  https://doi.org/10.22319/rmcp.v11s2.4693.

The grasslands are exposed to climate change effects that will be observed along the next decades. This will change the plant communities, modifying in turn the services and products supplied by these areas. The influence of the climate as a primary productivity determinant for ecosystems has led to research on the impact of climate change on plant communities with the use of simulation models. The species of Bouteloua genus are among the most important ones in Mexico’s grasslands due to their quality as forage for livestock and their ecological characteristics -the most prominent being the sideoats gramma [Bouteloua curtipendula (Michx.) Torr.]-. The objective was to analyze the areas with environmental suitability for B. curtipendula as an effect of climate change in Mexico. The reference and the future climate were analyzed through the General Circulation Models (GCM) HadGEM and GFDL, with the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 for the period 2041-2060 and 2061-2080; for the niches of potential distribution modelling, georeferences from 407 collection sites and 29 environment variables were used with the MaxEnt model. Both GCMs predict that the potential area for B. curtipendula will experience an initial decrease of 3.1 to 14.4 %, although later it will recover and even reach an increase of 1.4 %. The annual temperature, the May to October precipitation, and the December to April moisture index, were the main environmental variables accounting for the potential distribution of the species.

Keywords : Bouteloua curtipendula; Environmental suitability; Descriptors; Ecological niche; MaxEnt; General circulation models; Climate change.

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