Modelagem da distribuição atual e Futura de Espécies de Mata de Igapó na Amazônia

Abstract

The igapó forest is a unique ecosystem of the Amazon, characterized by seasonal flood regimes that strongly condition the distribution of plant species. In the face of global climate change, understanding the response of these species to environmental changes becomes essential for conservation planning. The study aimed to model the current and future distribution of Mauritia flexuosa, Socratea exorrhiza and Victoria amazonica, evaluating the impacts of future climate scenarios on their potential distribution in the Amazon and other Brazilian biomes. The occurrence records of the species were obtained from national and international databases, scientific collections and specialized literature, through filtering procedures and reduction of spatial autocorrelation. Environmental climatic, edaphic and topographic variables were used, with collinearity control by means of Principal Component Analysis, considering components responsible for at least 95% of the total variance. The ecological niche modeling was conducted with different algorithms, evaluated by performance metrics such as AUC, Kappa, TSS, Jaccard and Sorensen. Future projections considered the scenarios SSP245 and SSP585, for the periods of 2041-2060, 2061-2080 and 2081-2100. The results indicated that the distribution of species is structured by integrated environmental gradients, with strong influence of climatic seasonality, water availability and soil properties. The Random Forest algorithm presented the best predictive performance. In the current period, M. flexuosa presented wide potential distribution, S. exorrhiza showed more restricted occurrence to the Amazon domain and V. amazonica revealed highly specialized pattern, associated with specific aquatic environments. Future projections indicated reduction of environmentally suitable areas for tree species, especially under the SSP585 scenario, while V. amazonica presented spatial redistribution associated with hydrologically stable environments. The results show the vulnerability of igapó forest species to climate change and reinforce the importance of ecological niche modeling as a subsidy for conservation strategies in the Amazon.