Climate change will threaten endemic frogs in the Araucaria Forest

Climate change and land-use threatens ecosystem dynamics and species by reducing suitable habitats and leading species toward extinction. Endemic species with restricted geographic distribution are especially vulnerable to these threats. Using species distribution models, we assessed the potential impacts of future climate change (2050 and 2070 projections) on the geographic distributions of seven species of frogs that are endemic to the Araucaria Forest, southeastern Brazil. We also overlapped climatic suitable areas with current remnants of Araucaria Forest and conservation units to assess the availability of suitable areas, as well as the conservation of these areas. Our results indicate that all the seven species will lose important fractions, from 11 to 89%, of their current climatically suitable areas over the next 50 years. Considering suitable areas within habitat remnants, losses were predicted to range between 63 and 96% within scenarios. However, suitable areas within habitat remnants will proportionally represent larger portions in the future, highlighting the importance in protecting these areas to mitigate climate change impacts on biodiversity. Refugia and climatically suitable areas for seven species are projected to be concentrated towards the current southern and easternmost areas of Araucaria Forest. We recommend that these results should be considered for conservation planning to mitigate the impact of climate change on endemic species of Araucaria Forest and their habitats, as well as to conserve other species with less restrictive requirements.