Assessing habitat suitability for selected woody range-expanding plant species in African mountains under climate change

Abstract

Social-ecological systems in mountains are sensitive to the effects of climate change and are being affected at rates faster than other terrestrial habitats. We need to know which species are likely to be “winners” and which are likely to be “losers” in the context of climate change. This study evaluated the current and predicted future habitat suitability of selected range-expanding woody plant species (Acacia dealbata, Leucosidea sericea, Vernonanthura phosphorica) in African mountains under climate change. These species are representative of range-expanding plants, which have the potential to affect ecosystem services. Future average temperature is projected to decline in African mountains whereas global mean temperatures are projected to increase. Climate-change models may not be capturing dynamics in the climate of African mountains, possibly due to a lack of representative climate data used in calibrating these models. Although only climate variables were assessed, potential species distribution results were considered accurate according to model evaluation metrics, and some static factors thought to influence species distribution were strongly coupled to climate. Vernonanthura phosphorica and A. dealbata are likely to spread under climate change. The extent of habitat suitable for L. sericea is predicted to decline under climate change. An improved understanding of climate change in mountain systems through better representation of mountain climates in climate-change models could enhance the accuracy of species distribution models.

Keywords:

• biological invasions
• climate-change scenarios
• climate envelopes
• MaxEnt
• range-expanding plants
• species distribution modelling

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We acknowledge the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and iNatturalist databases for species location data and the AFRICLIM 3.0 for climatic data. We also acknowledge the Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment (GMBA) for the shapefile of global mountain areas.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

V.R.C. and O.G. thank the Afromontane Research Unit through the University of the Free State and the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust (OMT Ref. 22015/01) for funds for post-doctoral support (O.G.) and running costs (V.R.C.). KC and GM acknowledge support from the Working for Water (WfW) programme of the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment; National Resource Management (DEFF: NRM) programmes and the South African Research Chairs Initiative of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the National Research Foundation (NRF). DMR acknowledges support from the DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology and from the Mobility 2020 project no. CZ.02.2.69/0.0/0.0/18_053/0017850 (Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic) and the long-term research development project RVO 67985939 (Czech Academy of Sciences).