Carolina Tovar Ingar

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew · Ecosystem Stewardship

A complex set of biotic and abiotic factors determines the resilience of an ecosystem

Climate change is expected to severely impact cultivated plants and consequently human livelihoods1–3, especially in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)4–6. Increasing agricultural plant diversity (agrobiodiversity) could overcome this global challenge7–9 given more information on the climatic tolerance of crops and their wild relatives. Using >200,000 worldw...

Aim The climate variability hypothesis (CVH) predicts that locations with reduced seasonal temperature variation select for species with narrower thermal ranges. Here we (a) test the CVH by assessing the effect of latitude and elevation on the thermal ranges of Andean vascular plant species and communities, and (b) assess tropical alpine plants vul...

Dispersal is a key ecological process that influences plant community assembly. Therefore, understanding whether dispersal strategies are associated with climate is of utmost importance, particularly in areas greatly exposed to climate change. We examined alpine plant communities located in the mountain summits of the tropical Andes across a 4,000‐...

Aim: Climate change is expected to impact mountain biodiversity by shifting species ranges and the biomes they shape. The extent and regional variation in these impacts are still poorly understood, particularly in the highly biodiverse Andes. Regional syntheses of climate change impacts on vegetation are pivotal to identify and guide research prio...

The global biodiversity crisis in agriculture is overlooked compared with that in wild systems. This must change if we are to safeguard domesticated plant diversity and meet global sustainable development and biodiversity goals. In this Perspective, we review tools developed through decades of wild biodiversity conservation and provide a framework...

Societal Impact Statement Addressing the burning environmental crisis, we explore how the ‘extreme sport’ of paramotoring can enhance and accelerate scientific exploration with minimal environmental impact compared to off‐road vehicles. Our study demonstrates the scientific potential of paramotoring to access fragile desert ecosystems and investiga...

The global biodiversity crisis in agriculture is overlooked compared with that in wild systems. This must change if we are to safeguard domesticated plant diversity and meet global sustainable development and biodiversity goals. In this Perspective, we review tools developed through decades of wild biodiversity conservation and provide a framework...

Aim: We used two fungal data sources for occurrence records (fruitbodies and roots) to (1) test the influence of data source on estimating the environmental niche of ecto- mycorrhizal (ECM) fungi and (2) compare the differences in estimated niche area and density for ECM fungal species with conspicuous (easily observed, i.e. mushrooms) versus incon...

Aim We used two fungal data sources for occurrence records (fruitbodies and roots) to (1) test the influence of data source on estimating the environmental niche of ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi and (2) compare the differences in estimated niche area and density for ECM fungal species with conspicuous (easily observed, i.e. mushrooms) versus inconspi...

Beetles of the genus Antherophagus are phoretic organisms that inhabit the nests of Bombus species. They migrate and colonize new nests using the same bumblebees as carriers. Although Antherophagus beetles from temperate Europe and North America are known to use some plant species to move between bumblebees, it is unknown which plants are used as t...

Background and aims: Understanding diaspore morphology and how much a species invests on dispersal appendages is key for improving our knowledge of dispersal in fragmented habitats. We investigate diaspore morphological traits in high-Andean Compositae, their main abiotic and biotic drivers and test whether they play a role in species distribution...

Aim Climate change is transforming mountain summit plant communities worldwide, but we know little about such changes in the High Andes. Understanding large‐scale patterns of vegetation changes across the Andes, and the factors driving these changes, is fundamental to predicting the effects of global warming. We assessed trends in vegetation cover,...

Questions Roots are responsible for essential plant functions including water uptake. However, the extent to which root traits (size and structure) determine plant presence in water‐limited environments is still poorly understood. Here we investigated how root traits vary across water availability gradients within a dry South African biome. Locati...

As the adverse impacts of hydrological extremes increase in many regions of the world, a better understanding of the drivers of changes in risk and impacts is essential for effective flood and drought risk management and climate adaptation. However, there is currently a lack of comprehensive, empirical data about the processes, interactions, and fe...

Guiding Principles for Investing in Nature Here are ten steps to consider, when it comes to investing in nature to reach net zero. 1. Take a holistic approach – consider the whole ecosystem for nature and people 2. Create multiple positive impacts – avoid negative impacts 3. Plan for the long term 4. Build in climate resilience and adaptation, fro...

As the adverse impacts of hydrological extremes increase in many regions of the world, a better understanding of the drivers of changes in risk and impacts is essential for effective flood and drought risk management and climate adaptation. However, there is currently a lack of comprehensive, empirical data about the processes, interactions and fee...

With predicted climate change, drylands are set to get warmer and drier, increasing water stress for the vegetation in these regions. Plant sensitivity to drier periods and drought events will largely depend on trait strategies to access and store water, often linked to the root system. However, understanding the role of below-ground traits in enha...

Risk management has reduced vulnerability to floods and droughts globally1,2, yet their impacts are still increasing³. An improved understanding of the causes of changing impacts is therefore needed, but has been hampered by a lack of empirical data4,5. On the basis of a global dataset of 45 pairs of events that occurred within the same area, we sh...

High-altitude wetlands of the Central Andes, locally known as bofedales, provide important ecosystem services, particularly carbon storage, forage provisioning, and water regulation. Local communities have artificially expanded bofedales by irrigating surrounding grasslands to maximise areas for alpaca grazing. Despite their importance, biophysical...

The last decade has seen a proliferation of studies that use plant functional traits to assess how plants respond to climate change. However, it remains unclear whether there is a global set of traits that can predict plants’ ability to cope or even thrive when exposed to varying manifestations of climate change. We conducted a systematic global re...

Social Impact Statement Climate change is expected to disproportionately affect sub‐Saharan Africa in the next century, posing a threat to the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and deepening food insecurity. To adapt to this threat, more climate‐resilient crops need to be brought into the food system; these may be developed through breeding with c...

We report odd records in the southernmost range of the Tumbes Tyrant (Tumbezia salvini), a near-threatened species endemic of the Tumbesian region in Peru. We assessed whether these records could be considered geographically or ecologically marginal compared to the entire species distribution. By collecting occurrence records for the species and cl...

Due to warming, changes in microclimatic temperatures have shifted plant community structure and dynamics in tundra and alpine regions. The directionality and magnitude of these changes are less known for tropical alpine ecosystems. To understand the likely trajectory of these shifts in the Andes, we conducted a warming experiment in the northern A...

The desert fog oasis ecosystem of Peru and Chile comprises numerous oases along 3000 km of the Pacific coastal belt, it hosts a highly endemic flora, providing vital ecosystem services and genetic resources. However, due to their marked seasonality and fog cover they are poorly mapped, greatly compromising their conservation. Here we redress this u...

The aim of our study was to assess the importance of different Colombian bioregions in terms of the supply of useful plant species and the quality of the available distribution data. We assembled a dataset of georeferenced collection localities of all vascular plants of Colombia available from global and local online databases. We then assembled a...

Significance Although today the rainforest is continuous in Central Africa, the scarce fossil record suggests that arid conditions during the ice ages might have reduced tree density. However, the vast majority of the fossil pollen cores preserved in Tropical Africa are too young to inform about this period. Investigating whether the climate change...

Background The páramos, the high-elevation ecosystems of the northern Andes, are well-known for their high species richness and provide a variety of ecosystem services to local subsistence-based communities and regional urbanizations. Climate change is expected to negatively affect the provision of these services, but the level of this impact is st...

The Useful Plants and Fungi of Colombia project is a 2.5-year initiative led by Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in collaboration with the Alexander von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute. Its aim is to develop pathways to enhance nature’s contribution to people in Colombia by increasing, consolidating and making accessible the knowledge of...

Páramos, a neotropical alpine grassland‐peatland biome of the northern Andes and Central America, play an essential role in regional and global cycles of water, carbon, and nutrients. They act as water towers, delivering water and ecosystem services from the high mountains down to the Pacific, Caribbean, and Amazon regions. Páramos are also widely...

Here, we use 30 long-term, high-resolution palaeoecological records from Mexico, Central and South America to address two hypotheses regarding possible drivers of resilience in tropical forests as measured in terms of recovery rates from previous disturbances. First, we hypothesize that faster recovery rates are associated with regions of higher bi...

A new species from the Northern Peruvian Andes (Cajamarca department), Drymaria veliziaesp. nov. , is proposed in the present paper. It grows in the high-elevation montane grasslands and it is morphologically similar to D. auriculipetala from which it differs in having elliptic-ovate leaves, blade margin bases glandular, large number of stipules ar...

The rainforests of Tropical Africa have fluctuated over time. Although today the forest cover is continuous in Central Africa this may have not always been the case, as the scarce fossil record in this region suggests that more arid conditions might have significantly reduced the density of trees during the Ice Ages. Our aim was to investigate whet...

The high tropical Andes are rapidly changing due to climate change, leading to strong biotic community, ecosystem, and landscape transformations. While a wealth of glacier, water resource and ecosystem-related research exists, an integrated perspective on glacier, landscape, and biota dynamics and the interlinkages of involved drivers and processes...

Question The existence of monodominant forest in highly diverse tropical rainforest has been the subject of much debate. One hypothesis suggests that the combination of advantageous traits and long periods of low disturbance is key for this forest's persistence. Here we ask whether there is evidence for the long‐term presence of monodominant Gilber...

Despite El Niño events being one of the main forces shaping the coastal desert vegetation in South America, the impacts of the high precipitation typical of this rare but recurrent climatic event remain understudied. Here we monitored the plant community of a coastal lomas, a seasonal desert ecosystem, during 1998 and 2001 to analyse its changes du...

Temporal changes of plant community characteristics and climate variables between 1998 and 2001. Mean values per sampling campaign of vegetation cover (m cover), density (m density), alpha diversity (m alpha div) were obtained by averaging values of all plots per sampling campaign while values of total richness (t richness) and gamma diversity (gam...

Species list. Species recorded in the 15 sampling campaigns of 31 plots of 1m2 in Lomas de Lachay assessed between 1998 and 2001. Nomenclature follows Brako & Zarucchi (1993). (PDF)

Spearman correlation between species density and climatic variables. We used Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. Correlation coefficients (Rho), original p-values (p_value) and p values after the correction are shown (p_value_bonf). (PDF)

Spearman correlation between plant community characteristics and climatic variables. We used Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. Correlation coefficients (Rho), original p-values (p_value) and p values after the correction are shown (p_value_bonf). (PDF)

Kruskal–Wallis test comparing plant community characteristics between tourist use zones. Analysis for alpha diversity, vegetation cover and density. (PDF)

Raw abundance and cover data. Species abundance (# individuals) and cover (cm2) recorded in the 15 sampling campaigns of 31 plots of 1m2 in Lomas de Lachay assessed between 1998 and 2001. (XLSX)

Seasonality index (SI) for each plant community characteristic. The index is calculated by using the values recorded for the typical driest month (February) and the typical most humid month (August). See methods for a full description. (PDF)

Contrary to expectations, some human-modified landscapes are considered to sustain both human activities and biodiversity over the long-term. Agroforestry systems are among these landscapes where crops are planted under native shade trees. In this context, ancient agroforestry systems can provide insight into how farmers managed the landscape over...

Accelerated melting of glaciers is expected to have a negative effect on the water resources of mountain regions and their adjacent lowlands, with tropical mountain regions being among the most vulnerable. In order to quantify those impacts, it is necessary to understand the changing dynamics of glacial melting, but also to map how glacial meltwate...

Natural patchiness and human fragmentation result in habitats that are not continuously distributed. How spatial configuration of patches in fragmented habitats influences biodiversity remains largely controversial. Here, we propose a framework to extend the species–area relationship (SAR) approach to analyze how changes in habitat configuration af...

Four major forest types are currently present in the central African rainforest; mixed forest, Marantaceae forest, monodominant Gilbertiodendron forest and swamp forest. These forest types span vast areas and demonstrate highly significant differences in diversity and productivity; yet factors responsible for their formation are poorly understood....

Our research shows that tropical forests of Central Africa are highly diverse: some are very dynamic and more or less disturbed, others are less so; some have a great diversity of trees, others very little. This variety is the wealth of the second largest rainforest in the world and explains its potential to react differently to different anthropog...

Prediction of biotic responses to future climate change in tropical Africa tends to be based on two modelling approaches: bioclimatic species envelope models and dynamic vegetation models. Another complementary but underused approach is to examine biotic responses to similar climatic changes in the past as evidenced in fossil and historical records...

Observations and projections for mountain regions show a strong tendency towards upslope displacement of their biomes under future climate conditions. Because of their climatic and topographic heterogeneity, a more complex response is expected for biodiversity hotspots such as tropical mountain regions. This study analyzes potential changes in the...

Density functions of the selected biome probability and standard deviation, according to the number of overlaps between the confidence interval of the selected biome and another biome or biomes. (PNG)

Median relative area changes between future and present for potential and remnant biomes (A1B 2010–2039 and A2 2040–2069). (DOC)

Median change in the area of potential biomes for each model under A1B scenario, 2010–2039. (EPS)

Median change in the area of remnant biomes for each model under A1B scenario, 2040–2069. (EPS)

Maps representing uncertainty analysis of the biome model and non-analogue climates. A) Map showing the number of overlaps between the confidence interval of the most probable biome and other biomes for the present. B) Map showing the richness of non-analogue climates for the future under scenario A2 2040–2069 based on the summed occurrence of all...

Median change in the area of potential biomes versus remnant biomes under A2 scenario. In dark grey the lost areas (the biome will be replaced by another biome), in grey stable areas (areas that remained unchanged) and in light grey new or emerging areas (the biome is projected to occur in the future but not in the present). Bars represent the mini...

Median change in the area of potential biomes for each model under A1B scenario, 2040–2069. (EPS)

Median change in the area of remnant biomes for each model under A1B scenario, 2010–2039. (EPS)

Variables used for each biome model. (DOC)

Conversion matrix from present biomes to future projected biomes for scenario A2 2040–2069. (DOC)

Mountains are rich in biodiversity and provide ecosystem services for their inhabitants. These regions are currently threatened by land use and land cover changes (LUCC), therefore an efficient monitoring is required to capture such changes. The aim of this study is to test a landscape change analysis in a mountain region to guide landscape managem...

Background: The Andes-Amazon basin of Peru and Bolivia is one of the most data-poor, biologically rich, and rapidly changing areas of the world. Conservation scientists agree that this area hosts extremely high endemism, perhaps the highest in the world, yet we know little about the geographic distributions of these species and ecosystems within co...

Long-term ecological records are essential to understanding past responses of vegetation to climate change and human activity. As part of a multi-disciplinary project (Coforchange), we undertook research into the past conditions that prevailed during the Holocene in a region that currently holds the world's second largest rainforest. Tropical Moist...

Whilst there are a number of mapping methods available for determining important areas for conservation within protected areas, there are few tools available for assessing the ecological value of landscapes that are ‘beyond the reserves’. A systematic tool for determining the ecological value of landscapes outside of protected areas could be releva...

The Andes-Amazon basin of Peru and Bolivia is one of the most data-poor, biologically rich, and rapidly changing areas of the world. Conservation scientists agree that this area hosts extremely high endemism, perhaps the highest in the world, yet we know little about the geographic distributions of these species and ecosystems within country bounda...

Endemic species model results.

Gap analysis results.

Sources of species locality data and expert reviewer list.

Ecological system accuracy assessment.

Enlarged map of SE Peru; Vertebrate Endemism & Ecological Systems.

Species distribution modeling, Ecological System mapping, endemism and irreplaceability, gap analysis.

Biodiversity assessment represents a baseline for developing conservation strategies, but the assessment of future impact of some policies also requires the development of scenarios. These assessments are particularly important and difficult in areas with high biodiversity such as the Tropical Andes. Therefore three countries were analyzed: Colombi...