Environmental variables

The environmental variables used for the modeling included 19 bioclimatic variables and three topographic variables (elevation, terrain slope, and rocky outcrops).

The 19 bioclimatic variables, derived from temperature and precipitation, were obtained from the WorldClim database (version 2.1, released in January 2020, https://www.worldclim.org/). The climatic data for the creation of these bioclimatic variables were generated through interpolations of climate data obtained from approximately 50,000 weather stations distributed worldwide from 1970 to 2000 [14].

The topographic variables—elevation and terrain slope—were retrieved from the Brazilian Geomorphometric Database (TOPODATA, Banco de Dados Geomorfométricos do Brasil, http://www.dsr.inpe.br/topodata/) of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais). Data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission from the US Geological Survey were used to generate these two topographic variables.

The variable rocky outcrops was acquired from the Integrated System of Geospatial Bases of the State of Espírito Santo (GEOBASES, Sistema Integrado de Bases Geoespaciais do Estado do Espírito Santo, https://geobases.es.gov.br/). Mapping of the rocky outcrops was performed on an orthomosaic using photointerpretation analysis and manual vectoring procedures. For better applicability in this study, this variable was transformed from categorical to continuous using the kernel density estimation with a bandwidth of 0.1°.

All variables were raster datasets, with a resolution of 30 arc seconds, which is approximately equivalent to 1 km.

The Geographic Information System ArcGIS version 10.8 (ESRI, Redlands, CA, USA) with the World Geodetic System (WGS84) datum were used for the spatial procedures of this study.