Will seed dispersers keep pace? Vulnerability of seed-dispersing mammals to climate change in the Mesoamerican seasonally dry forest

Abstract Seed-dispersing mammals play essential roles in forest regeneration, landscape connectivity, and the maintenance of plant diversity. Understanding the impacts of climate change on these species is critical, particularly in highly threatened ecosystems such as tropical seasonally dry forests. Here, we assessed how projected climate change could affect the distribution of 87 seed-dispersing mammal species within the Mesoamerican seasonally dry forests and estimated their vulnerability by integrating multiple metrics of climatic exposure and range-shift capacity. Potential distributions were modeled under current and future climates (2040s–2080s), considering two socio-economic pathways (SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5). We quantified losses, gains, and stable areas under assumptions of species dispersal (contiguous or non-dispersal). Additionally, we applied a synthetic risk syndrome approach based on exposure and predictive traits and evaluated whether projected percentage changes in species distributions were associated with threat category and geographic range size. Our models indicate that many seed-dispersing mammals may experience range contractions: on average, 75 species’ ranges contracted, while 12 remained stable or expanded. Around 30% of species, most of them endozoochorous, were found to be highly vulnerable due to high climatic exposure and low range-shift capacity. Notably, even species currently classified as Least Concern and those with broad distributions may be negatively affected by climate change. Two species ( Peromyscus aztecus and Sciurus aberti ) showed consistent signals of potential local extirpation. These findings underscore the urgent need to incorporate climate change considerations into conservation and restoration strategies for Mesoamerican seasonally dry forests to safeguard key ecosystem functions.