Climatically suitable habitats under current and future scenarios for a potentially threatened snake

• Published in: Neotropical biology and conservation 2016-01, Vol.11 (1), p.13
• Main Authors: Henrique Caldeira Costa, Vinícius Avelar São-Pedro, Daniel Paiva Silva
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Endangered & extinct species; Habitats; Snakes; Wildlife conservation
• ISSN: 1809-9939; 2236-3777
• DOI: 10.4013/nbc.2016.111.02

Climate change may cause several biodiversity impacts in the near future, including shifts in the range of species, as well as local population declines. Distribution modeling tools have proven to be useful to predict areas with environmentally suitable conditions for numerous taxa, and predicting these changes in distribution are critically important for conservation. We assessed environmentally suitable areas for the snake Drymoluber brazili under current climate conditions and evaluated how future scenarios of climate change may affect habitat suitability for this species. Currently, there are suitable areas for the occurrence of this snake along the southeastern Cerrado and portions of the Atlantic Forest. Under future climate scenarios, predicted areas of occurrence tend to become more fragmented, but increase northeast and west from the areas of current distribution. Despite these predictions, the difficulties that D. brazili has to face in order to survive in human altered landscapes may cause a decrease in suitable areas as habitat destruction increases throughout this region. Our results suggest that D. brazili may be threatened in the Brazilian state of São Paulo, highlighting the urgency in reassessing the conservation status of this species.