Effect of climatic change on the potential distribution of five species of temperate forest trees in Mexico

Abstract

Pinus ayacahuite, P. hartwegii, Abies hickelii, Quercus laurina and Q. ocoteifolia are species distributedat very high altitudes, so they will be more sensitive to climate change. We calculated the probability of distributionof each species to certain environmental conditions throughout potential distribution maps calculated from the totalarea occupied in the country and obtained the percentage of change under conditions of climate change proposed by2 general circulation models with 2 emission scenarios. The results show that the 5 species will experience reductionin its distribution, due to changes in temperature and precipitation. This might be supposed a significant decline intheir populations and even predict some local extinctions along their current distribution.