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There is a need to revise the framework used to project species risks under climate change (CC) and land-use/cover change (LUCC) scenarios. We built a CC risk index using the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change framework, where risk is a function of vulnerability (sensitivity and adaptive capacity), exposure, and hazard. We incorporated future LUCC scenarios as part of the exposure component. We combined a trait-based approach based on biological characteristics of species with a correlative approach based on ecological niche modeling, assigning risk scores to species, taxonomic (orders), and functional (trophic, body size, and locomotion) groups of terrestrial mammals occurring in Mexico. We identified 15 species projected to lose their climatic suitability. Of the 11 taxonomic orders, Eulipotyphla, Didelphimorphia, Artiodactyla, and Lagomorpha had the highest risk scores. Of the 19 trophic groups, piscivores, insectivores under canopy, frugivores-granivores, herbivores browser, and myrmecophagous had the highest risk scores. Of the five body-sized groups, large-sized species (15 kg) had highest risk scores. Of the seven locomotion groups, arboreal and semi-aquatics had highest risk scores. CC and LUCC scenarios reduced suitable areas of species potential distributions by 37.5% (with CC), and 51% (with CC and LUCC) under a limited full-dispersal assumption. Reductions in suitable areas of species potential distributions increased to 50.2% (with CC), and 52.4% (with CC and LUCC) under a non-dispersal assumption. Species-rich areas (75% species) projected 36% (with CC) and 57% (with CC and LUCC) reductions in suitability for 2070. Shifts in climatic suitability projections of species-rich areas increased in number of species in northeast and southeast Mexico and decreased in northwest and southern Mexico, suggesting important species turnover. High-risk projections under future CC and LUCC scenarios for species, taxonomic, and functional group diversities, and species-rich areas of terrestrial mammals highlight trends in different impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem function.

Global climate change and habitat loss are displacing tropical montane forests along mountain slopes1–4. Cloud forests are one of the most diverse and fragile of these montane ecosystems5–8, yet little is known about the historical and ongoing impacts of anthropogenic disturbances on these forests. Here we assess historical (1901–2016) changes in the altitudinal range of vascular plant species in Mesoamerican cloud forests and evaluate the relative impacts of climate change and land-use alterations. By analysing thousands of occurrence records from public biological collections, we uncovered common altitudinal shifts across species and suggest an overall contraction of cloud forests starting in the late 1970s. We infered a pervasive and interrelated impact of rising temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, and deforestation on the distribution of cloud forest species across Mesoamerica. Over the last fifty years, cloud forests have declined due to deforestation and warmer and more (seasonally) arid climates9–11. This is pushing species’ to contract their altitudinal ranges and may lead to an increasing probability of abrupt and devastating declines of population sizes, local adaptation, and migration.

Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have led to sustained global warming over the last decades1. This is already reshaping the distribution of biodiversity across the world and can lead to the occurrence of large-scale singular events, such as the melting of polar ice sheets2,3. The potential impacts of such a melting event on species persistence across taxonomic groups – in terms of magnitude and geographic extent – remain unexplored. Here we assess impacts on biodiversity of global warming and melting of Greenland’s ice sheet on the distribution of 21,146 species of vascular plants and tetrapods across twelve megadiverse countries. We show that high global warming would lead to widespread reductions in species’ geographic ranges (median range loss, 35–78%), which are magnified (median range loss, 95–99%) with the added contribution of Greenland’s melting and its potentially large impact on oceanic circulation and regional climate changes. Our models project a decline in the geographical extent of species hotspots across countries (median reduction, 48–95%) and a substantial alteration of species composition in the near future (mean temporal dissimilarity, 0.26–0.89). These results imply that, in addition to global warming, the influence of Greenland’s melting can lead to the collapse of biodiversity across the globe, providing an added domino in its cascading effects.

Rising temperatures can lead to the occurrence of a large-scale climatic event, such as the melting of Greenland ice sheet, weakening the AMOC and further increasing dissimilarities between current and future climate. The impacts of such an event are still poorly assessed. Here, we evaluate those impacts across megadiverse countries on 21,146 species of tetrapods and vascular plants using the pessimistic climate change scenario (RCP 8.5) and four different scenarios of Greenland's ice sheet melting. We show that RCP 8.5 emission scenario would lead to a widespread reduction in species' geographic ranges (28-48%), which is projected to be magnified (58-99%) with any added contribution from the melting of Greenland. Also, declines in the potential geographical extent of species hotspots (12-89%) and alterations of species composition (19-91%) will be intensified. These results imply that the influence of a strong and rapid Greenland ice sheet melting, resulting in a large AMOC weakening, can lead to a faster collapse of biodiversity across the globe.

Dengue is the most important viral disease transmitted by mosquitoes, predominantly Aedes (Stegomyia) aegypti (L.) (Diptera:Culicidae). Forty percent of the world’s population is at risk of contracting the disease, and a large area of Mexico presents suitable environmental conditions for the life cycle of Ae. aegypti. In particular, the Central Mexican Highlands have a high population density, increasing the risk of transmission and propagation of dengue. In the present study, the potential distribution of Ae. aegypti was modeled under an ecological niche approach using the maximum entropy technique with the aim of determining the spatial risk distribution of dengue. The final model of five variables (minimum temperature of the coldest month |Bio6|, precipitation of the wettest month |Bio13|, precipitation seasonality |Bio15|, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and relative humidity) contributed to more than 90% of the model’s performance. The results of the potential distribution model were then compared with the number of dengue cases per locality during the 2009–2015 period considering four suitability of presence categories. Category 4 corresponded with the highest suitability of presence (0.747 to 1) and the greatest risk of dengue (odds ratio [OR] = 103.27; P < 0.001). In conclusion, the present ecological niche model represents an important tool for the monitoring of dengue and the identification of high-risk areas.

The deforestation and degradation of natural habitats is the second largest contributor to carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to the atmosphere. Temperate forests cover ∼16.5% of the Mexican landscape, and are a priority ecosystem for global conservation due to their high rate of endemism and species diversity. These forests also provide valuable ecosystem services, including the storage of organic carbon. Mexican temperate forests have lost more than half of their original cover, with ongoing forest degradation, resulting in CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. Most studies and carbon inventories only consider organic carbon stored in the aboveground biomass, and do not consider the organic carbon stored within soils of temperate forests. As a result, the emissions of CO2 due to deforestation are underestimated, and the value of temperate forests is underappreciated. To address this shortcoming, (1) we examine the extent and factors determining soil organic carbon stocks; (2) we estimate soil organic carbon stocks of Mexican temperate forests, the CO2 emissions caused by deforestation and avoided emissions from conservation and (3) we discuss the causes of loss of soil OC and management strategies to mitigate this loss. We propose that including the soil organic carbon stock-component is a priority for national projects targeting reducing emissions from deforestation. Also, urgent studies on the impacts of forest degradation in stocks of soil organic carbon are needed. Management strategies for conservation and rehabilitation of Mexican temperate forests must consider social and economic aspects of the local communities.

Biodiversity conservation calls for spatial explicit approaches to maximize the representation and persistence of genetic diversity given species’ idiosyncratic threats in mosaic landscapes, but conservation planning methodologies seldom account for this. Here, we introduce a novel approach that uses proxies of genetic diversity to identify conservation areas, applying systematic conservation planning tools to produce hierarchical prioritizations of the landscape. It accounts for: (i) evolutionary processes, including historical and environmental drivers of genetic diversity, and (ii) threat processes, considering taxa specific tolerance to human-modified habitats and their extinction risk status. We illustrate our approach with crop wild relatives (CWR) because their intra- and interspecific diversity is important for crop breeding and food security. Although we focus on Mesoamerican CWR within Mexico, our methodology offers new opportunities to effectively guide conservation and monitoring strategies to safeguard the evolutionary resilience of any taxa, including in regions of complex evolutionary histories and mosaic landscapes.

Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have led to sustained global warming over the last decades1. This is already reshaping the distribution of biodiversity across the world and can lead to the occurrence of large-scale singular events, such as the melting of polar ice sheets2,3. The potential impacts of such a melting event on species persistence across taxonomic groups – in terms of magnitude and geographic extent – remain unexplored. Here we assess impacts on biodiversity of global warming and melting of Greenland’s ice sheet on the distribution of 21,146 species of vascular plants and tetrapods across twelve megadiverse countries. We show that high global warming would lead to widespread reductions in species’ geographic ranges (median range loss, 35–78%), which are magnified (median range loss, 95–99%) with the added contribution of Greenland’s melting and its potentially large impact on oceanic circulation and regional climate changes. Our models project a decline in the geographical extent of species hotspots across countries (median reduction, 48–95%) and a substantial alteration of species composition in the near future (mean temporal dissimilarity, 0.26–0.89). These results imply that, in addition to global warming, the influence of Greenland’s melting can lead to the collapse of biodiversity across the globe, providing an added domino in its cascading effects.

Mexican islands are one of the most diverse territories in the world and consequently their conservation should be a national and international priority. Three main threats to islands’ diversity have been detected: invasive species, land use change and climate change. Most studies have been focused on invasive species and land use change. Actually, as far as we know, this work is the first approach to evaluate climate change impacts on the biodiversity of islands in Mexico. We had two main goals: to list the vertebrate species that have been registered in Mexican islands and to model the possible impacts of climate change in the distribution of islands’ vertebrates. To evaluate climate change impacts, we used the ecological niche modeling that relates geographic occurrences with environmental variables to create a bioclimatic profile that can be projected in other time and other geographic areas. In our results we obtained a list of species registered in Mexican islands that increased in more than twice the number of species acknowledged by the Mexican government and the ecological niche modeling of 54 vertebrate species. We found that the species list effort was very important, because knowing which species exist is the first step to preserve them. In terms of ecological niche modeling, we modeled mammals, reptiles and amphibians. From these three groups, reptiles were the group with greatest losses and more species in the top-ten vulnerable list. If we considered a no dispersion scenario, all evaluated species presented losses regarding their current potential distribution area. If the full dispersion scenario was taken into account, the net change value resulted positive for the majority of the species evaluated, consequently if no barriers exist and the dispersion ability is good enough, changes in climatic conditions might not be an important threat. However, this is not the case for most species evaluated. Areas with a higher number of species (richest areas) do show changes in the future with shifts to the east and north of the country. Finally, we could find significant differences between times and scenarios in terms of suitable area losses. Greatest losses can be found in the long term RCP 8.5 Wm –2 in comparison to the long term RCP 4.5 Wm –2 , meaning that the direction that humanity takes in terms of climate change will have consequences on island biodiversity. In this work, we did not take into account the sea level rise, which is expected to have important impacts on islands species.

Climate change, habitat loss and fragmentation, invasive species, and resource over-exploitation are among the major factors driving biodiversity loss and the current global change crisis. Maintaining and restoring connectivity throughout fragmented landscapes is key to reduce habitat isolation and mitigate anthropogenic impacts. To date, few connectivity approaches seek to identify corridors along climate gradients and least transformed natural habitats despite its importance to facilitate dispersal of organisms, as species' ranges shift over time to track suitable climates. In this study, we identified least-cost climatic corridors in Mexico between 2027 old-growth vegetation patches incorporating evapotranspiration as climatic variable, Euclidean distances, and human impact. We identified old-growth vegetation patches using the land use and vegetation map of 2011 (scale 1:250 000) by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI). Moreover, we calculated a human impact index based on the theoretical framework of the Global Biodiversity Model (Alkemade et al. 2009) but adapted for Mexico (Mexbio, Kolb 2016), and includes the impact of land use, road infrastructure and fragmentation based on the land use and vegetation map of 2011 and a road map by the Mexican Institute of Transportation. We modeled corridors for a baseline period (1980-2009) and under three future time periods (2015-2039, 2045-2069 and 2075-2099), corresponding to four Global Circulation Models (MPI-ESM-LR, GFDL-CM3, HADGEM2-ES and CNRMCM5) each under two emission scenarios (RCP 4.5 and 8.5) The historical and future evapotranspiration values were calculated using the climate surfaces from Cuervo-Robayo et al. 2019 and from the Center of Atmospheric Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico*1, respectively. The historical and future evapotranspiration values were calculated using the climate surfaces from Cuervo-Robayo et al. 2019 and from the Center of Atmospheric Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, respectively. We used the Turc evapotranspiration equation (Turc 1954) to estimate actual evapotranspiration. Least cost climatic corridors using future climate projections were used to test the assumption that climatic gradients are maintained in the future. We then prioritized climatic corridors using a multicriteria analysis guided by expert knowledge, incorporating factors such as indicators of human impact, vulnerability and exposure to climate change, and priority sites for biodiversity conservation and restoration. On average, more than 4,500 least cost climatic corridors were identified for each scenario. There is a high spatial coincidence in the geographical location of current and future climatic corridors (overlap > 90%). Fewer corridors were identified in the northern part of the country where natural vegetation is less fragmented, whereas in central and southern Mexico landscape fragmentation is greater, resulting in an increased number of corridors (Fig. 1). The use of open spatial data was key in identifying climatic corridors in order to support decision-making. The results provide a spatial guide to implement conservation and restoration actions to promote connectivity, in particular among climatic stable areas, thus supporting the achievement of Aichi Targets and Sustainable Development Goals. Also, it informs multiple stakeholders and sectors in land-use planning decisions and to promote the alignment of existing incentives to reduce habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation in key areas needed to maintain and recover landscape connectivity in the face of global change.

En el Pacifico oriental tropical (POT), los pociloporidos representan un componente clave de las comunidades coralinas, las que se desarrollan en condiciones ambientales limitativas. El objetivo de este estudio es comprender como el cambio climatico, en particular el aumento de la temperatura y la acidificacion, podrian influir en la distribucion de estas especies coralinas. Se usaron modelos de nicho ecologico para evaluar posibles cambios en la distribucion geografica de 9 especies de pociloporidos, basados en las predicciones de aumento de temperatura y disminucion del pH bajo los escenarios “vias de concentracion representativa” (RCP, por sus siglas en ingles) 2.6, 4.5 y 8.5 para el ano 2050. Las proyecciones elaboradas con Maxent, muestran una tendencia hacia la conservacion del area de distribucion de las especies en el escenario RCP 2.6, mientras que se observo un aumento en el area favorable para la mayoria de ellas bajo los escenarios RCP 4.5 y 8.5. Hacia el 2050, las condiciones optimas para la presencia de los corales se ubicaran en latitudes altas y hacia el ecuador. Finalmente, se preve que regiones actualmente consideradas marginales para el desarrollo arrecifal persistan y se expandan bajo condiciones futuras. Estos resultados tienen implicaciones importantes para la conservacion de los arrecifes marginales bajo un clima cambiante.

[ES] El conjunto de ideas, métodos y programas informáticos que se conoce como “Modelado de Nicho Ecológico” (MNE) el relacionado “Modelado de Distribución de Especies” (MDS)— han sido objeto de intensa exploración e investigación en las últimas décadas. A pesar de existir al menos cuatro síntesis publicadas, este campo ha crecido tanto en complejidad, que la formación de nuevos investigadores es difícil. Hasta ahora, dicha formación se ha hecho de manera presencial en cursos organizados por universidades o centros de investigación, de los que hemos formado parte como instructores. Sin embargo, el acceso a este tipo de cursos especializados es restringido, por un lado, porque los cursos no se ofrecen en todas las universidades, y por otro, porque normalmente se imparten en inglés. Para facilitar el acceso a una mayor comunidad de científicos de habla hispana, presentamos un curso en español, completamente digital y de acceso gratuito, que se realizó vía Internet durante 23 semanas consecutivas en 2018. Aunque las barreras intrínsecas al uso de Internet pueden dificultar la accesibilidad a los materiales del curso, hemos usado diversos formatos para la divulgación de los contenidos académicos (video, audio, pdf) con el objetivo de eliminar la mayor parte de estos problemas., [EN] The suite of ideas, protocols, and software tools that has come to be known as “Ecological Niche Modeling” (ENM)—as well as those for the related “Species Distribution Modeling” (SDM)—has seen intensive exploration and research attention in recent decades. In spite of at least four syntheses, the field has grown so much in complexity that it is rather difficult to access for newcomers. Until now, accessibility to this field was achieved by in-person courses organized by universities or research centers, in some of which we have participated as instructors. However, the access to these specialized courses is limited, on one hand because they are not offered in all universities, and on the other because normally they are taught in English. To expand the access to a wider community of Spanish-speaking researchers, here we offer an entirely digital and free-of-charge course in Spanish, which was presented over 23 weeks via Internet in 2018. Although intrinsic Internet-related barriers may limit access to course materials, we have made them available in diverse formats (video, audio, pdf) in order to eliminate most of these problems, Las presentes contribuciones representan difusión científica por parte de varias instituciones y agencias de financiamiento (incluyendo U.S. NSF DBI-1661510 para R.P. Anderson y Virginia Tech Startup Funds para L.E. Escobar).

"En el Pacífico oriental tropical (POT), los pocilopóridos representan un componente clave de las comunidades coralinas, las que se desarrollan en condiciones ambientales limitativas. El objetivo de este estudio es comprender cómo el cambio climático, en particular el aumento de la temperatura y la acidificación, podrían influir en la distribución de estas especies coralinas. Se usaron modelos de nicho ecológico para evaluar posibles cambios en la distribución geográfica de 9 especies de pocilopóridos, basados en las predicciones de aumento de temperatura y disminución del pH bajo los escenarios “vías de concentración representativa” (RCP, por sus siglas en inglés) 2.6, 4.5 y 8.5 para el año 2050. Las proyecciones elaboradas con Maxent, muestran una tendencia hacia la conservación del área de distribución de las especies en el escenario RCP 2.6, mientras que se observó un aumento en el área favorable para la mayoría de ellas bajo los escenarios RCP 4.5 y 8.5. Hacia el 2050, las condiciones óptimas para la presencia de los corales se ubicarán en latitudes altas y hacia el ecuador. Finalmente, se prevé que regiones actualmente consideradas marginales para el desarrollo arrecifal persistan y se expandan bajo condiciones futuras. Estos resultados tienen implicaciones importantes para la conservación de los arrecifes marginales bajo un clima cambiante."

For much of the twentieth century, many or most scholarly journals in biodiversity, ecology, biogeography and conservation were owned and published by scientific societies and made available to the broader scientific community at relatively low cost. However, the past several decades have seen a dominant process of commercialization of the publication process in this field, either by commercial publishing firms taking over publication of journals owned by a society (e.g., Evolution), or by commercial publishers starting new journals to fill “niches” that were until then empty in the scholarly publishing ecosystem. Diversity and Distributions is an example of this latter category of journals, having been created by Wiley Publishers in 1993 (as Biodiversity Letters). Being a journal owned by a commercial publisher, it has always been accessed by readers via subscription, but the publication process has been free to potential authors whose work has passed peer review.

Mangrove forests provide important ecosystem services, but are under constant pressure from natural, anthropogenic, and climate change related disturbances. Environmental drivers on mangrove change at large spatial scales, other than sea level rise, are not well understood. In here, we use spatially explicit methods to identify the main environmental drivers of mangrove coverage change over a decade in the landscape of the North coast of the Yucatan peninsula, Mexico. A post-supervised classification approach on seven SPOT 5 multispectral satellite images was used to construct thematic maps of mangrove coverage between 2004 and 2014. A linear regression model between the thematic maps was performed to estimate the mangrove coverage change rate per pixel. Climate surfaces for annual maximum, minimum and mean temperature, and annual mean and cumulative precipitation for the region were calculated for the period 1980–2009 using data obtained from the National Meteorological Service. The effect of environmental variables on mangrove coverage change rates was assessed with a boosted generalized additive model (boosted GAM). The lowest and highest overall accuracy obtained for the time series thematic maps were 87.14% (Kappa = 0.78), and 97.5% (Kappa = 0.95), respectively. The most influential environmental variables on mangrove coverage change were annual cumulative precipitation (21%), and annual maximum temperature (9%). Current climate change scenarios for the region predict an increase in temperature and a decrease in precipitation, intensifying environmental stress on this ecosystem. Therefore, adequate management strategies are fundamental to help maintain the mangrove forest under changing environmental conditions.

Tropical forests are facing constant degradation and destruction as a result of multiple threats, mostly from land-use, and increasingly from climate change. Understanding the effects of these threats, and the role of Protected Areas in buffering their impacts, is becoming an essential task to prevent the loss of species. In this study, we used the woolly monkey, a keystone species with seed dispersal functions, as a surrogate to assess the future conservation potential of the Protected Areas in Colombia, a megadiverse country where important tropical forests remain. We modelled the ecological niche of the woolly monkey using an ensemble forecasting approach to assess potential distribution changes resulting from climate change and deforestation. Distribution changes in 2050 were estimated for two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), three Global Circulation Models (GCMs) and one deforestation projection. Additionally, we evaluated the current and future suitable area for the species located within Protected Areas. For the year 2016, we estimated a potential distribution area for the woolly monkey of 413,533 km2 after accounting for deforestation. The future synergistic effect of climate change and deforestation could cause a reduction of up to ∼13 % in the species potential distribution in Colombia, mainly in the Andean-Amazonian foothills and the Amazon region. The distribution area lost due to climate change was exceeded by losses due to deforestation in all scenarios, where up to 65,356 km2 could be lost as a result of forest clearance. The current Protected Area system will not be able to mitigate the impacts of climate and land-use changes, since ∼26 % of the woolly monkey’s range is currently located within National Parks and Indigenous Reserves. This range could decrease by ∼18 % in the most drastic future scenario. Based on these results, we emphasize the need of an integrated approach of land-use planning that encompasses the creation, expansion and connectivity of Protected Areas, along with the strengthening of law enforcement capacity and restoration efforts to halt increasing deforestation. The effective implementation of these strategies is necessary to assist species to track their suitable climatic conditions, especially through the Andean-Amazonian foothills, and will contribute to the conservation of tropical biodiversity.

Spatial assessments of historical climate change provide information that can be used by scientists to analyze climate variation over time and evaluate, for example, its effects on biodiversity, in order to focus their research and conservation efforts. Despite the fact that there are global climatic databases available at high spatial resolution, they represent a short temporal window that impedes evaluating historical changes of climate and their impacts on biodiversity. To fill this gap, we developed climate gridded surfaces for Mexico for three periods that cover most of the 20th and early 21st centuries: t1-1940 (1910–1949), t2-1970 (1950–1979) and t3-2000 (1980–2009), and used these interpolated surfaces to describe how climate has changed over time, both countrywide and in its 19 biogeographic provinces. Results from our characterization of climate change indicate that the mean annual temperature has increased by nearly 0.2°C on average across the whole country from t2-1970 to t3-2000. However, changes have not been spatially uniform: Nearctic provinces in the north have suffered higher temperature increases than southern tropical regions. Central and southern provinces cooled at the beginning of the 20th century but warmed consistently since the 1970s. Precipitation increased between t1-1940 and t2-1970 across the country, more notably in the northern provinces, and it decreased between t2-1970 and t3-2000 in most of the country. Results on the historical climate conditions in Mexico may be useful for climate change analyses for both environmental and social sciences. Nonetheless, our climatology was based on information from climate stations for which 9.4–36.2% presented inhomogeneities over time probably owing to non-climatic factors, and climate station density changed over time. Therefore, the estimated changes observed in our analysis need to be interpreted cautiously.

Humans greatly benefit from natural water resources, also known as hydrological ecosystem services. However, these services may be reduced by population growth, land use changes, and climate change. As these problems become more critical, the need to quantify water resources increases. The estimation of water yield and its distribution are of great importance for the management of water resources. In the present study, the average annual water yield of the hydrographic basins in the southern region of Ecuador was estimated for the 1970–2015 period using the InVEST water yield model based on the Budyko framework. The model estimates annual surface run-off at the pixel, sub-basin, and basin level considering the following variables: precipitation, actual evapotranspiration, land cover/use, soil depth, and available water content for plants. The model was calibrated by varying the ecohydrological parameter Z to reduce error between estimated and observed water yield. The results showed that the modeling of water yield in the majority of the hydrographic basins was satisfactory, allowing the basins to be ranked according to their importance for water production. The Mayo and Zamora basins had the highest water production, corresponding with 934 and 1218 mm per year, respectively, while the Alamor and Catamayo basins had the lowest water production, corresponding with 206 and 291 mm per year, respectively. The present study provides an initial estimate of water yield at the basin level in the southern region of Ecuador, and the results can be used to evaluate the impacts of land cover changes and climate change over time.

En 2016 implementamos un sistema de seminarios de enseñanza en formato de videos libres y accesibles desde internet, con la finalidad de dar a conocer de forma sencilla y en castellano, las bases conceptuales y aplicaciones de la ecología espacial y los modelos de nicho ecológico en estudios de ecología, conservación biológica, epidemiología y agrobiodviersidad, así como su implementación para el diseño de políticas públicas de los recursos naturales. Cada seminario fue desarrollado por uno o varios expertos y se discutieron conceptos, métodos y diferentes herramientas disponibles para elaborar modelos de distribución de especies. Este manuscrito reúne los resúmenes de los seminarios en línea, dando referencias clave para cada tema y el enlace al video correspondiente. Los videos están disponibles de forma libre en YouTube o en formato .mp4 bajo solicitud.

Climate surfaces are digital representations of climatic variables from a region in the planet estimated via geographical interpolation techniques. Climate surfaces have multiple applications in research planning, experimental design, and technology transfer. Although high-resolution climatologies have been developed worldwide, Mexico is one of the few countries that have developed several climatic surfaces. Here, we present an updated high-resolution (30 arc sec) climatic surfaces for Mexico for the average monthly climate period 1910–2009, corresponding to monthly values of precipitation, daily maximum, and minimum temperature, as well as 19 bioclimatic variables derived from the monthly precipitation and temperature values. To produce these surfaces we applied the thin-plate smoothing spline interpolation algorithm implemented in the ANUSPLIN software to nearly 5000 climate weather stations countrywide. As an additional product and unlike the previous efforts, we generated monthly standard error surfaces for the three climate parameters, which can be used for error assessment when using these climate surfaces. Our climate surface predicted slightly drier and cooler conditions than the previous ones. ANUSPLIN diagnostic statistics indicated that model fit was adequate. We implemented a more recent error assessment, a set of withheld stations to perform an independent evaluation of the model surfaces. We estimate the mean absolute error and mean error, with the withheld data and all the available data. Average RTGCV for monthly temperatures was of 1.26–1.12 °C and 24.67% for monthly precipitation, and a RTMSE of 0.48–0.56 °C and 11.11%. The main advantage of the surfaces presented here regarding the other three developed for the country is that ours cover practically the entire 20th century and almost the entire first decade of the 21st century. It is the most up to date high-resolution climatology for the country.

Demographic analyses and ecological niche modeling (ENM) are two popular tools that address species persistence in relation to environmental conditions. Classic demography provides detailed information about the mechanisms that allow a population to grow or remain stable at a local scale, while ENM infers distributions from conditions suitable for species persistence at geographic scales by relating species' occurrences with environmental variables. By integrating these two tools, we may better understand population processes that determine species persistence at a geographic scale. To test this idea, we developed a model that relates climate to demography of the cactus Opuntia rastrera using 15 years of data from one locality. Using this model we determined the geographic area where populations would have positive growth rates given its climatic conditions. The climate-dependent demographic model showed poor performance as a distribution model, but it was helpful in defining some mechanisms that determine species' distributions. For instance, high rainfall had a negative impact on the population growth rate by increasing mortality. Rainy areas to the west of the distribution of O. rastrera were identified as unsuitable both by our climate-dependent demographic model and by a popular ENM algorithm (MaxEnt), suggesting that distribution is constrained by excessive rains due to high mortality. Areas projected to be climatically suitable by MaxEnt were not related with higher population growth rates. Instead, we found a strong correlation between environmental distance to the niche centroid (center of the niche hypervolume, where optimal conditions may occur) and population growth rate, meaning that the niche centroid approach is helpful in finding high-fitness areas.

Evaluation of various climate change factors on Mexican bird populations shows temperature has the strongest influence., Numerous climate change effects on biodiversity have been anticipated and documented, including extinctions, range shifts, phenological shifts, and breakdown of interactions in ecological communities, yet the relative balance of different climate drivers and their relationships to other agents of global change (for example, land use and land-use change) remains relatively poorly understood. This study integrated historical and current biodiversity data on distributions of 115 Mexican endemic bird species to document areas of concentrated gains and losses of species in local communities, and then related those changes to climate and land-use drivers. Of all drivers examined, at this relatively coarse spatial resolution, only temperature change had significant impacts on avifaunal turnover; neither precipitation change nor human impact on landscapes had detectable effects. This study, conducted across species’ geographic distributions, and covering all of Mexico, thanks to two large-scale biodiversity data sets, could discern relative importance of specific climatic drivers of biodiversity change.

Studies about the permanence of natural protected areas are important, because they contribute to the promotion of the conservation target and to optimize economical and human resources of specific areas. Although there are no natural protected areas in Guerrero, it has suitable habitat for the jaguar, a common species used for planning and management of conservation areas. Since, there is actual evidence that environmental and anthropogenic variables may modify vertebrate species distribution with time, in this study we predicted the potential distribution of Panthera onca using MaxEnt for this Southeastern region. In addition, we made a projection considering the effect of a moderate climate change scenario, to evaluate the stability of the conservation area for a period of 24 years. Furthermore, we applied three threat scenarios for the actual prediction to define conservation priorities areas. In our results, we have found that 18 361Km2 (29%) of this state has a permanent suitable habitat for jaguar conservation in the Sierra Madre del Sur and Pacific coast, with a possible loss of 2 000km2 in 24 years. This habitat is characterized by a 56% of temperate forest (mainly conifers and hardwoods 34%), and 35% of tropical deciduous forest. With the projections, the Southeastern region resulted with the higher anthropogenic impacts, while at the same time, an area of 7 900km2 in the Central-Western state was determined as a priority for conservation. To assure jaguar conservation, we propose the inclusion of this new conservation area, which is located in the Sierra Madre del Sur, with which we may potentially preserve other 250 species of threatened vertebrates. This way, the suggested habitat conservation may represent a local effort in Guerrero and will strengthen the biological corridor network for P. onca protection in Latin America.