Modelagem da distribuição geográfica atual e futura de Guerlinguetus (Rodentia, Sciuridae) no Brasil

• Autor(a) principal: Lacerda, Patrícia Oliveira
• Data de Publicação: 2013
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo (riUfes)
• Texto Completo: http://repositorio.ufes.br/handle/10/1461
• topic: Potential distribution; Modeling; Climate change; Future; Distribuição potencial; Modelagem; Mudanças climáticas; Futura; Guerlinguetus; Mudanças climáticas; Esquilo - Distribuição geográfica; Conservação da natureza; Biogeografia; Zoologia; 57

The genus Guerlinguetus, belonging to the family Sciuridae, has seven extant species in Brazil. These species have been treated as synonyms of Sciurus aestuans, but were distinguished in a genus based on the most comprehensive taxonomic revisions available until recently. Nevertheless, there is little in the literature on the distribution of species of this genus in Brazil and there was no research in order to know their future distribution. The modeling potential distribution of species is becoming an important component of conservation schemes and a lot of techniques have been developed for this purpose. It can be an important tool to determine the degree of threat especially in species or groups with little information available about their distribution. Thus, the objective of this study was to investigate the possible influence of climate change on Guerlinguetus species distribution in Brazil, through modeling potential of current and future distributions of these species. For this we used topographic and climatic data and the pessimistic scenario of CO2 emissions (A2) for the year 2070, of the General Circulation Model CSIRO, based on the fourth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The models showed significant loss of areas considered environmentally appropriate, from the current distribution model to the future distribution model for Guerlinguetus species except for G. aestuans. Despite the expansion on potential region distribution for G. aestuans for the year 2070, the average values of environmental suitability decreased compared to the current distribution model. The location of these species of arboreal habit in geographically dispersed areas within the Amazon, Cerrado and Atlantic Forest is of concern due to the large loss of the original area of these biomes, making possible the threat hypothesis to the survival of these species due to future environmental changes.