Assessing climate change risks to the geographical distribution of grass species

Abstract

ABSTRACT There is extensive evidence showing the impact of climate change on the biology and biogeography of species. Adopting drought-tolerant plants to conserve water is a potential adaptation to reduce the consequences of climate change. Accordingly, it was hypothesized that climate change would not affect potential distributions of drought-tolerant species. Here, this hypothesis was tested to model the potential distribution of three drought-resistant plant. Here, the potential distribution of Agropyron cristatum, Agropyron desertorum, and Festuca arundinacea was studied in Iran under current and future climate conditions, using 10 species distribution models. Sixty-two climate change scenarios (19 global climate models (GCMs) under four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs)) were used to model the potential distribution of the three plants in Iran in the future. The three species have different responses to predicted climate change due to species-environment interactions, species morphological and physiological advancement. The three species showed different responses to predicted climate change due to species-environment interactions. Festuca arundinacea and Agropyron cristatum will, respectively, experience the most and least severe decline in suitable habitats in the next 50 years. This result is because decreased annual precipitation caused an increase in habitat suitability for A. cristatum, while the same variable had the opposite effect for A. desertorum and F. arundinacea. On the other hand, F. arundinacea grows on moist soils that decreased annual precipitation caused a decrease in habitat suitability. Also, our results have clearly shown that plant species drought-stress tolerant are not immune to climate change and their current distributions undergo significant changes as a result of the changing of climate.