How climate change will change the potential distribution of two wood-decaying fungi?

Abstract

Changes in climate, which can be understood as fluctuations in climate patterns as a reflection of natural or anthropic interventions, can generate changes in the environment and consequently affect the diversity of organisms. Fungi are extremely important in organic matter cycling in different environments, mainly forest areas, decomposing dead wood. To better understand the effects of climate change on two wood-degrading Agaricomycetes, their potential neotropical distribution was modeled using known occurrence data, available in the GBIF database and in specific literature, and associated with predictor variables extracted from Worldclim. A modeling package in R environment was used to analyze the present and future suitability for the optimistic and pessimistic scenarios. The results indicate the climate as an important factor in the distribution of Auricularia brasiliana and Megasporoporia neosetulosa. The suitability factors for the metrics used indicate that the models can be used to analyze climatic areas and that temperature and precipitation strongly influence the permanence of species in these locations. The results also indicate areas that can be affected by climatic effects, consequently causing a decrease in the occurrence and permanence of these fungi in the Neotropics. Our models can be useful as future guidelines in conservation studies for fungi.

Keywords:
Agaricomycetes; Conservation; Neotropics; GBIF; Species distribution modelling