Presented during the 17h Annual Sahelo-Saharan Interest Group Meeting organized by the NGO Sahara Conservation Fund in Senegal, from 4 to 6 May 2017. The Sahara Conservation Fund (SCF) gathers every year about a hundred people who are interested in the field of Sahelo-Saharan species conservation.

1. 17th Annual Sahelo-Saharan Interest Group Meeting
2 days of talks on biodiversity conservation in the Sahara and in the Sahel
Desert refugia under a changing climate : spatial ad temporal patters
of botanical diversity in a hyper-arid mountain system
Peter COALS et al., Researcher – WildCRU, University of Oxford
May 4 – 6, 2017

2. Desert refugia under a
changing climate
Spatial and temporal patterns of botanical
diversity in a hyper-arid mountain system
Peter Coals 1*
Avi Shmida 2, Amiel Vasl 3, Nasr Mansour
Duguny 4 & Francis Gilbert 1
1. School of Life Sciences, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK
2. Dept. of Ecology, Evolution & Behavior, Institute of Life Sciences, The Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.
3. Leon Blaustein Ecology Lab, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel.
4. Abu Seila, St Katherine, South Sinai, Egypt.

3. Outline
• Background
• Global climate change
• Biodiversity loss
• Finger-prints of climate change; range contraction
• Knowledge gaps and research needs
• Research question
• Study site
• Data collection
• Results
• Conclusions
• Conservation implications and future directions

4. Background
• Global climate change:
• Rapidly recent temperature increases
• Predicted to continue
Dufresne, J. L., Foujols, M. A., Denvil, S., Caubel, A., Marti, O., Aumont, O., ... & Bony, S. 2013. Climate change projections using the IPSL-CM5 Earth System Model: from
CMIP3 to CMIP5. Climate Dynamics, 40(9-10), 2123-2165.
Time evolution of the
global mean surface
air temperature
anomaly (Dufresne
et al. 2013)

5. Climate change & biodiversity loss
Bellard, C., Bertelsmeier, C., Leadley, P., Thuiller, W. & Courchamp, F. 2012. Impacts of climate change on the future of biodiversity. Ecology Letters 15(4):
365-377.
• Climate change is a significant driver of current and predicted
biodiversity loss across taxa.
Projections of
biodiversity
losses driven by
climate change
(Bellard et al.
2012)

6. Finger-prints of climate change
• Shifting climatic zones reduce suitable habitat area, leading to
isolation of populations and subsequent mountain-top extinctions
• Range restricted species are especially vulnerable to range
contraction, upslope movement, and mountain-top extinction.
Parmesan, C. 2006. Ecological and evolutionary responses to recent climate change. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics 37: 637-669.

7. Knowledge gaps; range shifts
• Plants; mostly studied in temperate regions, little from subtropical
and arid regions.
• Lower altitudinal range limits are under researched, and rarely
considered together with upper limits.
• We present the first such study from the Middle East.
Research effort
(publications, N)
on climate-related
range shifts since
1850s for
terrestrial
ecoregions
(Lenoir &
Svenning 2015).
Lenoir, J. & Svenning, J.-C. 2015. Climate-related range shifts - a global multidimensional synthesis and new research directions. Ecography 38: 15-28.

8. Research questions
• What are the altitudinal patterns of diversity in a desert
mountain floral refuge?
• Is there evidence of recent altitudinal range shifts in a
hyper-arid Middle Eastern desert mountain flora?
• How do directions of shift for upper and lower altitudinal
range limits of plants vary?

9. Location
• St Katherine Protectorate (SKP), South Sinai, Egypt
4350 km2 of the southern
peninsula of Sinai
Altitude to 2643m (Egypt’s
tallest mountain)

10. SKP Flora
• 19 of Egypt’s 33 endemic plant species.
• One of the most important centres of plant diversity in the Middle
East (IUCN, 1994).
• Many species of plants exhibit disjunct distributions of Holarctic
species found more commonly further north, suggesting that these
species are relics of a more humid, colder past.
IUCN. 1994. Centres for plant diversity: a guide and strategy for their conservation. IUCN, Cambridge, UK.
http://flora.org.il/en/plants/CRASIN/
Crataegus x
sinaincus

11. Refugial pattern of diversity
• Temperate flora remnant species remain only at higher altitudes.
• Hill numbers diversity indices:
• (a) 0D: Increasing species richness with altitude.
• (b) 1D: Decreasing typical species with altitude.
• (c) 2D: Increasing common species with altitude.
• Communities become more uneven at higher altitudes with a few
species showing increasing levels of dominance.
• Thus increased species richness at high altitudes consists mainly of
rare species.

12. Endemics
• Endemics peak in density at high altitudes
• (a) Plantago sinaica
• (b) Polygala sinaica
• (c) Silene schimperiana

14. Data collection
• Field surveys:
• October to mid-December 2014
• Surveys were carried out in mountainous areas
predominantly within an igneous ring-dyke area over an
altitude range of 1324 m to 2629 m.
• Locations of transects was chosen to cover all major
habitat types.
• Quadrats of area 100 m2 every 50 m change in elevation.
• 36 sites; 283 quadrats; 28300 m2.
• Abundances of all species recorded.

17. • Comparison of field data with a 1970s dataset compiled by Arbel &
Shmida (1979) within the St Katherine ring-dyke
• Method replicated by 2014 surveys.
• Lower resolution; quadrats placed every 200m change in altitude.
• Raw data unavailable from 1970s only upper and lower altitudinal
limits of species occurrences available.
• Paired species 2014-1970s:
• 81 species; upper altitudinal limits
• 25 species; lower altitudinal limits
• More than 10 individuals recorded during the 2014 field surveys:
• 63 upper limits
• 22 lower limits
Arbel O. & Shmida A .1979. The vegetation of the high mountains of South Sinai. Society for the Protection of Nature. Tel Aviv. 67 pp. [in Hebrew].

18. Results
• Is there evidence of recent altitudinal range
shifts in a hyper-arid Middle Eastern desert
mountain flora?
• Predictions:
• Upper altitudinal range limits shift upslope.
• Lower altitudinal range limits shift upslope.

19. Results; upper limits
• Predicted increase in mean upper altitudinal limit 1970s-2014:
• Significant increase in mean upper altitudinal limits (mean 2014:
2228.6 ± 294.5 m, mean 1970 2125.2 ± 350.2 m: 1-tailed paired t =
3.37, df = 61, p<0.001).

20. Species limit
shifts
• Significantly greater
numbers of species upper
range limits moved
upslope (resolution over
100 m):
• Movement of over 100 m
(26/40, binomial test
p=0.04).
• Movement of over 250 m
(16/18, binomial test
p<0.001).

21. Results; lower limits
• Predicted increase in mean lower altitudinal limit 1970s to 2014:
• Significantly reduced mean lower altitudinal limit (current
mean 1568.0 ± 162.1 m, past mean 1668.2 ± 166.6 m; paired t
= 3.02, df = 20, p=0.0064).

22. Species limit
shifts
• Significantly greater
number of species
decreased their individual
lower altitudinal limits
than did not (17/22,
binomial test p=0.008)
• Movement over 100 m
(12/13, binomial test
p=0.002).

23. Summary
• Mean upper limits and majority of species showed upslope
movement.
• In line with predictions.
• Mean lower limits and majority of species showed downslope
movement.
• Contrary to predictions.
• Suggests that factors in addition to temperature are influencing
lower limit shifts.
• Scope of study limited by lack of historical data.
• Check it isn’t annual variation…

24. Shrubs & Trees
• Support full data for larger movements:
• Higher mean upper limits (present mean 2219.1 ± 311.2 m, past
mean 2139.5 ± 353.3 m: paired t = 2.30, df = 36, p=0.027).
• Lower limits of shrubs and trees were also significantly lower in the
present data (1585.7 ± 145.7 m) than in the 1970s (1725.0 ± 171.8
m: paired t = 5.27, df = 12, p=0.0002).
Upper range limits Lower range limits
All species No majority upslope
(21/38, p=0.31)
Majority downslope
(14/16, p=0.006)
Movement > 100 m No majority upslope
(15/22, p=0.07)
Majority downslope
(9/9, p=0.006)
Movement > 250 m Majority upslope
(7/8, p=0.04)
N.A.

25. Species’ paired limit movements
Species
Limit movement patterns
Range size change
Lower limit Upper limit
Alkanna orientalis down stationary expanded
Astragalus echinus down down no change
Calipeltis cucullaris stationary up expanded
Colchicum guessfeldtianum up down contracted
Cotoneaster orbicularis stationary up expanded
Crataegus x sinaica stationary stationary no change
Globularia arabica down up expanded
Nepeta septemcrenata stationary down contracted
Origanum syriacum down stationary expanded
Phlomis aurea down up expanded
Polygala sinaica down stationary expanded
Pterocephalus sanctus stationary stationary no change
Pulicaria undulata stationary up expanded
Rubus sanctus down stationary expanded
Salvia multicaulis down down expanded
Scariola orientalis down down expanded
Silene leucophylla down up expanded
Silene schimperiana stationary down contracted
Stipa parviflora stationary up expanded
Thymus decussatus down down expanded
Verbascum decaisneanum stationary up expanded
Verbascum sinaiticum down up expanded
Endemics:
Polygala sinaica
gained ~200m
lower range limit.
Silene schimperiana
lost ~100m
altitudinal range at
high range limit.

26. Conclusions
• Simple predictions of upslope shifts are and
contracting ranges are not met.
• Wider climate change, including changes in
water balance, area of bare soil surface and
elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide levels may
influence range shifts in plants.
• Reliable climatic and environmental information
is lacking in South Sinai.
• Further research of drivers of range shifts in arid
lands are required.

27. Conservation for desert mountain
flora under changing climate
• Many species show expansions of their altitudinal ranges.
• Low present threat posed by range contraction.
• However, the Sinai endemic Silene schimperiana has contracted in
altitudinal range.
• Risk must be considered on a case-by-case basis for Sinai’s endemic
and rare species.
• Further similar studies required across other desert regions.
• Whilst we cannot conclusively state that observed point to
environmental change that may pose ecological and conservation
issues for the future.
• Highlight the necessity of increasing the comprehensiveness and
quality of the region’s environmental monitoring programmes.
• Only through the collection and use of detailed fine-scale data can
the underlying causes and conservation implications of observed
range shifts be determined.

28. Our thanks to the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency for
permission to carry out the 2014 work, and we are very grateful to Mr
Mohamed Kotb and the rangers of the St Katherine Protected Area for
their support for our work in this and other projects. We are hugely
grateful to Ibrahim ElGamal whose botanical and terrain expertise
significantly enhanced the quality of this work.