Vulnerability of cloud forests to climate change: what can we learn from high-resolution climatologies in a topographically complex oceanic archipelago?

Abstract

Cloud forests, ecosystems experiencing from persistent to frequent low-level cloud cover, exhibit extremely high levels of biodiversity with large percentages of endemism. On islands, cloud forests are often relatively small, isolated patches, which make them sensitive to climate change. To improve our understanding of cloud forest response to global warming, we developed CanClim, a high spatial resolution climate model of the Canary Islands. In particular, by downscaling the 30-arc-second resolution climate model pollinator to the visitor type. c) Reward: structural changes the reward step (a role played mostly by nectar) ensures the binding of the mutualistic network; we had established the correlation between nectar output and the size and thickness of secretory tissues in sepal trichomatous nectaries. Based on the previous knowledge of the transcription factor (CRC) gene and its conserved role across Malvales as the homeotic gene for nectary establishment, we detect unequal expression patterns that can be associated to nectar outputs between ornithophilous an entomophilous species. By using this dual genomic and transcriptomic approach, we gain insights into the mechanisms of evolution ocurring in pollinator-flower interaction shifts across the whole flower structure, which have so far being studied from an ecological perspective or on isolated traits