Climatic Seasonality Shapes Future Suitability and Extra-Limital Transferability in Patagonian Berry Shrubs

Patagonian berry shrubs are ecologically and culturally important native plants of southern South America, yet their climatic differentiation, future redistribution and extra-limital transferability remain poorly understood. We analysed 7079 occurrence records of Aristotelia chilensis (Elaeocarpaceae), Ugni molinae (Myrtaceae), Berberis microphylla and Berberis darwinii (Berberidaceae) using species-specific regularised presence-background models calibrated exclusively with native occurrences. Models incorporated spatial-block validation, bias-weighted background sampling and species-specific sets of collinearity-filtered climatic and topographic predictors. Future climatic suitability was projected to 2061–2080 under two global climate models and low- and high-forcing pathways, while geographic transferability to Australia and New Zealand was assessed using environmental similarity and environmental-distance diagnostics. Spatial validation showed weak-to-moderate, species-dependent discrimination. Precipitation seasonality made the largest contribution to model discrimination in three species, whereas temperature seasonality dominated U. molinae. Future projections indicated species-specific reorganisation rather than uniform directional shifts, with the broadest changes in B. microphylla. Current environmental novelty encompassed 66.0%–82.5% of Australasia. In contrast, B. darwinii showed strong extra-limital climatic correspondence: 99.2% of retained introduced records exceeded the native suitability threshold and 96.6% occurred under environmentally analogous conditions. These results demonstrate that temporal redistribution and geographic transferability must be interpreted jointly with model performance and environmental novelty when deriving conservation and biosecurity implications.