Effects on plant hotspots
The total area of hotspots will decrease from 8.4% in 2008 to 8.1% in 2100 (Fig. 3). Approximately 74 and 75% of the total predicted tree habitat was in protected area system, and the remaining areas were located in buffer zones or remnant forests. In addition, the results of FRAGSTATS revealed that the number of hotspot patches will decrease from 633 in 2008 to 577 in 2100. The number of hotspot patches corresponds to the mean patch size index, which shows that the mean patch size of hotspots will decrease from 2223 ha in year 2008 to 1483 ha for the predicted climate in 2100.
In addition, in the next century the accumulated core areas will substantially decline, approximately 54% for very high richness class and 33% for high richness class. Small, fragmented tree richness patches surrounded by agricultural land uses can be considered as degraded or cool spots (Myers et al., 2000).