Distribución potencial del género Polylepis en la Cuenca del río Paute bajo un escenario de cambio climático

Abstract

In the Andean region, research is scarce in all areas of knowledge, especially those related to biodiversity. Modeling the distribution of plant and animal species provides a measure of the potential occupation of species in unexplored areas, either for economic or accessibility reasons, becoming a useful tool for l conservation management. The Paute River Basin, given its national water importance, was the scenario chosen for modeling the potential distribution of the tree species of the botanical genus Polylepis, from the Tropical Andes. For this, data from the agency WorldClim -General Circulation Models was used, which contains necessary information on climate models, methods, scenarios and climatic variables that feeds the analysis of future predictionof Polylepisforests; data that was complemented with occurrences of the species in the study area. Once the climatic data and Polylepisobservations were obtained, a Maxent method was used, to build current and future prediction models of the species. The results obtained indicate the behavior of the species in the Rio Paute basin and are preliminary data for a species of great importance, as they will be used to make decisions related to the conservation of natural resources. The resulting distribution maps help to learn more about the behaviour of certain species of the genus Polylepisunder climate change scenario.