title: Conservation biogeography of the Cerrado's wild edible plants under climate change: Linking biotic stability with agricultural expansion.
abstract: REMISE OF THE STUDY: Wild edible plants (WEPs) have an important cultural and economic role in human population worldwide. Human impacts are quickly converting natural habitats in agricultural, cattle ranch, and urbanized lands, putting native species on peril of risk of extinction, including some WEPs. Moreover, global climate changes also can pose another threat to species persistency. Here, we established conservation priorities for the Cerrado, a neotropical region in South America with high levels of plant endemism and vulnerability, aiming to assure long-term persistency of 16 most important WEPs. We evaluated these conservation priorities using a conservation biogeography framework using ecological patterns and process at a biogeographical scale to deal with species conservation features.
  
  
  METHODS
  We built ecological niche models for 16 WEPs from Cerrado in the neotropics using climate models for preindustrial, past (Last Glacial Maximum) and future (year 2080) time periods to establish climatically stable areas through time, finding refugias for these WEPs. We used a spatial prioritization algorithm based on the spatial pattern of irreplaceability across the neotropics, aiming to ensure the persistence of at least 25% of range size in climatically stable areas for each WEP, using agricultural models as constraints.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The Southeast Cerrado was the most biotically stable and irreplaceable region for the WEPs compared with other areas across the neotropics.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our findings strongly suggest that the Southeast Cerrado should be considered a conservation priority, with new protected areas to be sustainably managed and restored, to guarantee the supply of cultural and ecosystem services provided from the Cerrado's WEPs.
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Biogeografia da Conservação e Comportamento Animal, Universidade Federal do Recôncavo da Bahia (UFRB), Centro de Ciências Agrárias, Ambientais e Biológicas (CCAAB); Setor de Biologia, Rua Rui Barbosa 710, Centro 44380-000, Cruz das Almas, BA, Brasil.
authors.forename: Guilherme
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: de Oliveira
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Macroecologia, Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG), Campus Jataí 75801-615, Jataí, GO, Brasil.
authors.forename: Matheus Souza
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Lima-Ribeiro
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Macroecologia, Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG), Campus Jataí 75801-615, Jataí, GO, Brasil.
authors.forename: Levi Carina
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Terribile
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Zoologia, Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA), Rua Barão de Geremoabo 147, Ondina 40170-290, Salvador, BA, Brasil.
authors.forename: Ricardo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Dobrovolski
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Genética, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG), Cx. P. 131 74001-970, Goiânia, GO, Brasil.
authors.forename: Mariana Pires de Campos
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Telles
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Ecologia Teórica e Síntese, Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG), Departamento de Ecologia, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Cx. P. 131 74001-970, Goiânia, GO, Brasil.
authors.forename: José Alexandre Felizola
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Diniz-Filho
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture; D044822:Biodiversity; D057231:Climate Change; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D058974:Phylogeography; D010945:Plants, Edible / Q000502:physiology*; D013020:South America; D013045:Species Specificity; D014329:Tropical Climate
keywords: conservation conflicts; cultural values; ecological niche models; ecosystem services; ensemble forecast; ensemble hindcast; food provisioning; irreplaceability