Suitable climate space and genetic diversity of the mountain-affiliated moth Cosmosoma maishei (Erebidae: Arctiinae: Arctiini: Euchromiina) in cloud forests of Chiapas, Mexico

Cosmosoma maishei (Laguerre, Antenor 1:153–172, 2014) is an Arctiini moth restricted to high elevations in the mountain Mesoamerican biodiversity hotspots. A narrow distribution and high ecological specialization make this moth susceptible to climate change effects. To our knowledge, no reports have described its potential distribution and genetic diversity, which are essential to understand its potential ability to cope with immediate and long-term impacts of climate change in threatened cloud forests of Chiapas, Mexico. Our aims were: (1) to evaluate suitable climate space for C. maishei in current and future climate change scenarios (conservative [RCP 2.6] and liberal [RCP 8.5]) across its distributional range in Chiapas; (2) to determine the genetic diversity/structure of C. maishei in cloud forests of El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve (ETBR; the largest most northern track of mountain cloud forest in Mesoamerica); and (3) to link genetic data with climate change projections for discussing conservation scenarios of C. maishei in mountain habitats of Chiapas. C. maishei covers a limited geographic range, roughly 21% of Chiapas's total area (15,826 km 2 ). We estimated a loss of climatic suitability of > 70% and significant uphill shifts in elevation ranging from 462 to 639 m under future conservative and liberal climate scenarios in Chiapas and ETBR, respectively. ISSR analysis revealed low genetic diversity between sampled C. maishei populations (He = 0.21 and He = 0.26) and a relatively low gene flow (Nm = 2.2), indicating potential local population extinction events if current trends in regional climate change persist. Implications for conservation Existing threats to moth population persistence support the urgent need to implement ex-situ/in-situ conservation measures, including bolstering current moth populations and the protection of suitable moth climatic habitat from cloud forests in part of its distributional range in the Mesoamerican biodiversity hotspot.