Shifting climate in Caribbean tropical forests: Long-term trends at La Selva (Costa Rica) and El Verde (Puerto Rico)
5 affiliations
- 1Department of Applied Ecology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States of America
- 2Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources and Center for Geospatial Analytics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States of America
- 3Escuela de Biología, Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, Guatemala City, Guatemala
- 4The Jones Center at Ichauway, Newton, Georgia, United States of America
- 5Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States of America
Abstract
Climate change is altering ecosystems worldwide, but long-term, site-level hydroclimatic responses remain comparatively under-documented in many tropical regions. We analyzed long-term air and water temperature, precipitation, and stream water level data from two active Caribbean research sites: La Selva Research Station, Costa Rica, and El Verde Field Station, Puerto Rico. Our goal was to assess long-term hydroclimatic trends and changes in extreme events using continuous monitoring from automatic and manual sensors. Long-term records show a mean daily temperature of 25.1°C (1992–2024, range: 19.5-29.6°C) at La Selva and 23.6°C (2000–2024, range: 17.7-28.2°C) at El Verde. Mean annual precipitation is 4166 mm at La Selva (1983–2024) and 3635.8 mm at El Verde (1975–2024). We found a decadal warming trend of 0.29°C at both locations. The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) influenced air temperature at El Verde, where La Niña (+0.02°C day−1, 95% CI: 0.002–0.042) phase was associated with higher daily temperatures, but had no detectable effect on air temperature at La Selva. A significant increase in the frequency of extreme temperature events (defined as exceeding the 95th, 97th, and 99th percentiles) was observed at both sites. Using the 95th percentile and a fitted generalized linear model, both locations had ~8 extreme temperature events per year in the beginning and increased to ~35 events per year in 2024. Changes in precipitation extremes were site-specific and differed between wet and dry metrics. La Selva showed an increase in wet extremes (heavy precipitation), with 99th percentile rainfall exceedances rising from ~1 event per year (1983–1985) to 6 per year in 2024. In contrast, El Verde showed no significant increase in heavy-precipitation events, but exhibited an increase in dry extremes (dry days <1.4 mm, increasing from 152 to 170 days per year). Stream water temperature had a moderate but significant increase. At La Selva, water temperature increased by 0.2°C, and at El Verde, by 0.9°C. An increasing tendency in high-water-level conditions was observed at both locations, though with marginal statistical support (p = 0.08 for the 99th percentile at La Selva and 95th percentile at El Verde), with estimated durations above these extreme thresholds roughly doubling over the study period. Overall, our study shows an increasing frequency of extreme events, both wet and dry, at these two Caribbean protected locations. These findings suggest important and distinct regional changes in climate over the region, with important consequences for ecosystem conservation and management.
Related
- Edge–Interior Differences in Plant Diversity and Herbaceous Functional Composition in Tropical Urban Remnant Forests: Associations with Invasive-Herb Dominance
- Land-use legacies and drought exposure affect aboveground carbon dynamics along elevational gradients in tropical forests of China
- Body reserves dynamics of tropical cattle in two contrasting case studies: Sub-Saharan Africa (Senegal) and Caribbean (Cuba)
- Ancient terrestrial forests reborn as modern marine ecosystems under shifting sea levels
- Shifting balance between habitat and climate in boreal biodiversity patterns across space, time and taxa
BibTeX
@article{ramirez2026shifting,
title = {{Shifting climate in Caribbean tropical forests: Long-term trends at La Selva (Costa Rica) and El Verde (Puerto Rico)}},
author = {Alonso Ramírez and Marcelo Ardón and Pavel García and Nicholas S. Marzolf and David Genereux},
journal = {PLOS Climate},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1371/journal.pclm.0001044},
url = {https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0001044},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Shifting climate in Caribbean tropical forests: Long-term trends at La Selva (Costa Rica) and El Verde (Puerto Rico)
AU - Alonso Ramírez
AU - Marcelo Ardón
AU - Pavel García
AU - Nicholas S. Marzolf
AU - David Genereux
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/12
JO - PLOS Climate
DO - 10.1371/journal.pclm.0001044
UR - https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0001044
AB - Climate change is altering ecosystems worldwide, but long-term, site-level hydroclimatic responses remain comparatively under-documented in many tropical regions. We analyzed long-term air and water temperature, precipitation, and stream water level data from two active Caribbean research sites: La Selva Research Station, Costa Rica, and El Verde Field Station, Puerto Rico. Our goal was to assess long-term hydroclimatic trends and changes in extreme events using continuous monitoring from automatic and manual sensors. Long-term records show a mean daily temperature of 25.1°C (1992–2024, range: 19.5-29.6°C) at La Selva and 23.6°C (2000–2024, range: 17.7-28.2°C) at El Verde. Mean annual precipitation is 4166 mm at La Selva (1983–2024) and 3635.8 mm at El Verde (1975–2024). We found a decadal warming trend of 0.29°C at both locations. The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) influenced air temperature at El Verde, where La Niña (+0.02°C day−1, 95% CI: 0.002–0.042) phase was associated with higher daily temperatures, but had no detectable effect on air temperature at La Selva. A significant increase in the frequency of extreme temperature events (defined as exceeding the 95th, 97th, and 99th percentiles) was observed at both sites. Using the 95th percentile and a fitted generalized linear model, both locations had ~8 extreme temperature events per year in the beginning and increased to ~35 events per year in 2024. Changes in precipitation extremes were site-specific and differed between wet and dry metrics. La Selva showed an increase in wet extremes (heavy precipitation), with 99th percentile rainfall exceedances rising from ~1 event per year (1983–1985) to 6 per year in 2024. In contrast, El Verde showed no significant increase in heavy-precipitation events, but exhibited an increase in dry extremes (dry days <1.4 mm, increasing from 152 to 170 days per year). Stream water temperature had a moderate but significant increase. At La Selva, water temperature increased by 0.2°C, and at El Verde, by 0.9°C. An increasing tendency in high-water-level conditions was observed at both locations, though with marginal statistical support (p = 0.08 for the 99th percentile at La Selva and 95th percentile at El Verde), with estimated durations above these extreme thresholds roughly doubling over the study period. Overall, our study shows an increasing frequency of extreme events, both wet and dry, at these two Caribbean protected locations. These findings suggest important and distinct regional changes in climate over the region, with important consequences for ecosystem conservation and management.
SN - 2767-3200
ER -