Contrasting Climate Change Responses of the Rare Moss Genus Tetrastichium (Mitt.) Cardot Across Macaronesia: Implications for Persistence and Conservation
Species distribution modeling reveals contrasting habitat suitability shifts for rare mosses across island archipelagos, highlighting urgent regional conservation needs.
Key Points
Assess the current and projected future climatic suitability of the rare moss genus Tetrastichium across Macaronesian archipelagos under climate change scenarios.
Compiled 90 occurrence records each for Tetrastichium fontanum and Tetrastichium virens across the Azores, Madeira, and the Canary Islands.
Fitted boosted regression tree models using WorldClim 2.1 bioclimatic predictors and projected suitability for 2061–2080 and 2081–2100 under SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5 using two global climate models.
Models demonstrated high accuracy, yielding an AUC of 0.88, an sTSS of 0.81, and sensitivity ≥ 0.94.
Climatically suitable areas expanded in the Azores but contracted markedly in Madeira and the Canary Islands, with suitability falling below threshold limits across the Canary Islands under the UKESM1-0-LL model by end-of-century.
Spatial overlap between current and future ranges declined under stronger radiative forcing and longer timeframes, with Tetrastichium virens maintaining consistently greater overlap than Tetrastichium fontanum.
Cite This Study
Cedrés-Perdomo et al. (2026) studied this question.