Format: ORAL

Rosa A. Scherson1, Taryn Fuentes-Castillo1, Federico Luebert1-2, Andrew Thornhill3, Brent Mishler4, Patricio Pliscoff5, 6, 7

1. Departamento de Silvicultura y Conservación de la Naturaleza, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile 2. Facultad de Ciencias Agronómicas, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile 3. NCW Beadle Herbarium, Armidale, New South Wales, Australia 4. Department of Integrative Biology, University and Jepson Herbaria, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA 5. Facultad de Historia, Geografía y Ciencia Política, Instituto de Geografía, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile 6. Departamento de Ecología, Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile 7. Center of Applied Ecology and Sustainability (CAPES), Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile 8. Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity (IEB), Santiago, Chile

Determining the factors that explain diversity patterns helps to understand the processes that have shaped different types of biodiversity hotspots. Phylogenetic Diversity (PD) and related evolutionary indicators have been increasingly used to understand patterns of biodiversity distribution and as a tool to aid in evaluating conservation targets. Mediterranean-like climatic areas around the world are characterized as being floristically diverse and vulnerable, and all of them are considered biodiversity hotspots. Central-southern Chile is one of these areas, showing high floral diversity and endemism. In this study, we calculated PD and other related metrics for the Chilean hotspot, identifying several interesting areas (hotspots within a hotspot). In areas such as Mediterranean Chile where lack of locality information is a problem to study biodiversity spatial patterns, species distribution models (SDMs) can be very useful in filling in missing locality information. Using SDMs, we analyzed how protected areas can act as a reservoir of PD in a climate change scenario in Mediterranean Chile, identifying museum-like and cradle-like areas. Randomizations were performed to identify areas in which these metrics departed from values expected by chance, for example identifying places in which phylogenetic overdispersion of taxa occurs. We correlated these areas with parameters such as geodiversity and climatic factors that could influence the spatial distribution of PD. Protected areas in MedChile are expected to harbor more PD than expected in climate change scenarios, but responses of individual areas differ depending mainly on climatic and geographic factors.