Abstract
Semiliquidambar cathayensis is a special and endangered plant in China, used for traditional Chinese medicine and in landscape applications. Predicting the impact of climate change on the distribution of S. cathayensis is crucial for its protection and the sustainable use of resources. We used the maximum entropy (MaxEnt) model optimized by the ENMeval data packet to analyze the potential geographic distribution changes of S. cathayensis in 12 provinces of Southern China for the different periods since the last interglacial period (LIG, 120–140 ka). Considering the potential geographic distribution changes in the province, and based on the two climate scenarios of Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 2.6 and RCP 8.5, the distribution range of S. cathayensis was analyzed and we predicted the range for the 2050s (average for 2041–2060) and 2070s (average for 2061–2080). The area under AUC (Area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve) is 0.9388 under these parameters, which indicates that the model is very accurate. We speculate that the glacial period refugia were the Nanling and Wuyi Mountains for S. cathayensis, and central and Western Fujian and Taiwan are likely to be the future climate refugia. In the mid-Holocene (MH, 6 ka), the growth habitat was 32.41% larger than the modern habitat; in the 2050s and 2070s (except RCP2.6–2070s), the growth habitat will shrink to varying degrees, so efforts to support its in situ and ex situ conservation are urgently needed. The jackknife test showed that the main factors affecting the geographical distribution of S. cathayensis were annual precipitation, precipitation of the wettest month, and precipitation of the driest month. The annual precipitation may be the key factor restricting the northward distribution of S. cathayensis. In general, the centroid of the distribution of S. cathayensis will move northward. The centroid of the adaptive habitats will move northward with the highest degree of climate abnormality. We think that Hainan Island is the most likely origin of S. cathayensis. These findings provide a theoretical basis for the establishment of genetic resources protection measures, the construction of core germplasm resources, and the study of the formation and evolution of Hamamelidaceae.
Highlights
The evolutionary direction, ecological habits, and geographical distribution of species are affected, constrained, and driven by the changing climate and human activities, which in turn affects ecosystem structure and biodiversity, except for human influence [1,2,3]
We found that the requirements for water, light, and heat of S. cathayensisis significantly differed between growth stages during the observation period in Tiantai mountain, Shaxian County (26◦ 39’38” N, 117◦ 49’32”E)
The maximum entropy (MaxEnt) model was used to predict the response of the distribution pattern of
Summary
The evolutionary direction, ecological habits, and geographical distribution of species are affected, constrained, and driven by the changing climate and human activities, which in turn affects ecosystem structure and biodiversity, except for human influence [1,2,3]. Periodic reciprocating oscillations, such as the glacial and interglacial periods and other sudden events in geological history, have led to regional differences in biodiversity; the last interglacial (LIG, 120–140 ka) is most closely related to modern times [4]. Juniperus drupacea, which is distributed in the Middle East and Greek
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