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Amazonian tree species threatened by deforestation and climate change

Nature Climate Change volume 9, pages 547–553 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Deforestation is currently the major threat to Amazonian tree species but climate change may surpass it in just a few decades. Here, we show that climate and deforestation combined could cause a decline of up to 58% in Amazon tree species richness, whilst deforestation alone may cause 19–36% and climate change 31–37% by 2050. Quantification is achieved by overlaying species distribution models for current and future climate change scenarios with historical and projected deforestation. Species may lose an average of 65% of their original environmentally suitable area, and a total of 53% may be threatened according to IUCN Red List criteria; however, Amazonian protected area networks reduce these impacts. The worst-case combined scenario—assuming no substantial climate or deforestation policy progress—suggests that by 2050 the Amazonian lowland rainforest may be cut into two blocks: one continuous block with 53% of the original area and another severely fragmented block. This outlook urges rapid progress to zero deforestation, which would help to mitigate climate change and foster biodiversity conservation.

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Fig. 1: Loss by global change for E. coriacea (DC) SA Mori.
Fig. 2: Amazonian species richness (number of species per grid cell) affected by global change and deforestation.
Fig. 3: Only half of the Amazonian forest may remain in 2050 (worst-case combined scenario).

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Data availability

All data used can be freely downloaded from GBIF (http://www.gbif.org) and WorldClim (http://www.worldclim.org) and are also available from the corresponding author upon request. A full list of species used can be found in Supplementary Table 1.

Code availability

The R code used for calculations and analyses is available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Acknowledgements

V.H.F.G, H.t.S. and R.P.S. were supported by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico grant no. 407232/2013-3—PVE—MEC/MCTI/CAPES/CNPq/FAPs. R.P.S. is also supported by Programa Professor Visitante Nacional Sênior na Amazônia—CAPES. I.C.G.V. is supported by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico grant no. 308778/2017-0—CNPq. This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal Nível Superior—Brazil (CAPES)—Finance Code 001. We thank S. Mota de Oliveira for constructive comments on the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciência Ambientais, Universidade Federal do Pará, Belém, Brazil

    Vitor H. F. Gomes & Ima C. G. Vieira

  2. Coordenação de Botânica, Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, Belém, Brazil

    Vitor H. F. Gomes & Ima C. G. Vieira

  3. Universidade Federal Rural da Amazônia, Belém, Brazil

    Rafael P. Salomão & Hans ter Steege

  4. Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, the Netherlands

    Hans ter Steege

  5. Systems Ecology, Free University, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

    Hans ter Steege

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Contributions

V.H.F.G. conceived the study. V.H.F.G., I.C.G.V. and H.t.S. designed the study. V.H.F.G. carried out the GBIF data collection. H.t.S checked the species list. V.H.F.G. carried out the analyses and wrote the R scripts. V.H.F.G. and H.t.S wrote the manuscript. I.C.G.V and R.P.S provided comments and feedback.

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Correspondence to Vitor H. F. Gomes.

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Gomes, V.H.F., Vieira, I.C.G., Salomão, R.P. et al. Amazonian tree species threatened by deforestation and climate change. Nat. Clim. Chang. 9, 547–553 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0500-2

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