Differential Responses to Climate and Land-Use Changes in Threatened Chinese Taxus Species

Jie Chen,Chen Chen,Jianming Wang,Junqing Li,Runguo Zang,Yin Wang,Jianmeng Feng,Jingwen Li,Ting Long

doi:10.3390/f10090766

Abstract

Rapid climate and land-use changes have been considered as the foremost threat to global biodiversity. China contains more than 3500 threatened higher plants, whereas the relative influence of climate and land-use changes on these endangered plants have not been explored simultaneously under topographical constraints. Here, using Taxus plants as the case study genus, we simulated the distribution range of threatened species under three scenarios of current and future climate and land-use conditions under topographical constraints. We also measured the associated difference in the responses of Taxus species to climate and land-use changes. Our results demonstrated the substantial influence of climate and land-use changes on the distributions of Taxus species. However, we observed different responses of Taxus species to these environmental changes. The distribution range of T. cuspidate Siebold & Zuccarini and T. mairei Lemee & H. Léveillé would substantially shrink, whereas the habitat range of T. fuana Nan Li & R. R. Mill would sharply expand under RCP 8.5(Representative Concentration Pathway scenarios) scenario. Meanwhile, T. wallichiana Zuccarini and T. chinensis (Pilger) Florin would experience apparent range shifts. Furthermore, topographical factors played non-negligible roles in shaping species distributions, and modifying the influence of climate and land-use changes. Together, these results provide robust evidence that even threatened species will have multiple responses to climate and land-use changes (e.g., shrinking, expanding, shifting). Our findings highlight that taking species ecological traits, habitat characteristics, and topographical constraints into account might provide valuable insights into threatened species conservation in the face of global environmental changes.

Highlights

In recent decades, the potential influence of rapid ongoing environmental changes on biodiversity and ecosystems have become the foremost concern for conservationists and ecologists [1,2,3]
This study explored the potential influence of climate and land-use changes on five Taxus plants in China
Our results demonstrate that both climate and land-use changes could significantly change the distribution range of the five Taxus species

Summary

Introduction

The potential influence of rapid ongoing environmental changes on biodiversity and ecosystems have become the foremost concern for conservationists and ecologists [1,2,3]. It is widely believed that climate changes, such as warming, increasing drought, and extreme weather will significantly alter species distributions and habitat quality [4,5], and cause habitat degradation and biodiversity loss [6,7]. As a consequence of human activities and climate changes, global land use is quickly shifting, which can further degrade species distributions by causing habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation [8]. Current and future climate and land-use changes have been recognized as the major threats to biodiversity and ecosystems [9,10,11]. Climate and land-use changes are unlikely to separately affect species distributions [10,14]. Climate changes affect the geographical range of a species at global and regional scales, whereas land-use changes can shape species distribution patterns at local scale [12] In addition to climate and land use, topographical factors might further shape species distributions by redistributing hydrothermal conditions, soil attributes, and disturbance regimes [16,17]

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