Modelo de distribución de la especie Escallonia myrtilloides L.f

Abstract

Climate change is one of the most important challenges humanity must face in the 21st century. One of the most vulnerable areas has been the Tropical Andes, ecosystems noted for their biodiversity and endemism as a result of their evolutionary, orographic and climatic history. These changes have affected the distribution of fauna, flora and fungi from the dispersal of exotic species to the decline and disappearance of native populations. For this reason, it is important to carry out research that contributes to developing species management and conservation plans and, within this, to predict future climate change scenarios. Species distribution modeling is one of the basic inputs to develop such plans, analyzing how the relationship of a species with different environmental variables occurs and thus, understanding what its ecological requirements are to project and evaluate the effect that any change could have. in the environment about its distribution. Therefore, the objective of this work was to model the potential distribution of Escallonia myrtilloides, a tree species of great ecological and timber importance whose current status is unknown, in order to contribute to future research for the analysis of the effects of climate change based on environmental variables that determine its distribution. For this, 784 georeferenced records were collected from Costa Rica to Bolivia through field collections and biodiversity platforms, points previously refined with the QGIS 3.10 tool, avoiding errors in the handling of information. These data were associated with a total of 19 climatic layers and 1 in height obtained through the “WorldClim” portal with a resolution of 30 ’’ through MaxEnt 3.3.3k. This program estimates the probability of unknown distribution of a species, through the concept of maximum entropy subject to said environmental variables. As a result, a model of the potential distribution of E. myrtilloides was obtained from good to excellent according to the AUC statistic, reflected in a map obtained in ArcGIS. It was found that this species has a potential area of 128,383 Km^2, mostly present in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, determining areas thanks to the temperature and altitude values that determine the humidity levels conducive to the species. For Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and Chile, a total potential area of 5,702 Km^2 (4.3%) was obtained, an area where no presence records were obtained, however, it is recommended to corroborate this information with georeferenced data in the field. The "arid diagonal" located in the north of Peru, is considered a climatic barrier that interrupts the potential range of the species. Its conservation status has not been evaluated, and only in Colombia, 21% of this potential area is within the SPNN, leaving out 78%. It is recommended that when modeling paramo and sub paramo species, soil variables are included, as these are more acidic with few minerals and thick layers of organic matter.