Many people ask fortune tellers, seers, clairvoyants, or even prophets to reveal what the future holds. Skeptics in turn, turn to the scientific method to predict possible outcomes of future conditions. Recently, we have asked ourselves how could mangrove trees possibly adapt to a rapidly changing climate?
Populations often occupy habitats with contrasting environments, creating the opportunity for local adaptation to happen. Such adaptive process may be facilitated, when gene flow between populations is limited. This is likely the case of black mangroves (Avicennia germinans and A. schaueriana) in the Brazilian coast.
Avicennia schaueriana propagules. Photograph by Mariana V. Cruz
As populations are locally adapted, they might also respond differently to new environments like those resulted from current climate changes. If the potential adaptive genetic diversity is quite different from those currently observed, than populations are at risk. Coupling climate-driven vulnerability with recent deforestation rates, João de Deus Vidal Junior (currently a postdoc at Universität Passau, Germany) and colleagues from UNICAMP discovered that climate-driven vulnerability is higher in populations south to the NE extreme of the South American continent. Also we observed that deforestation rates at the sites we obtained samples were higher than global average.
What we could do to support Brazilian black mangroves? We advocate that conservation strategies should consider populations connectivity and site-specific actions.
These findings are openly available here.