Abstract
Climate change has caused substantial shifts in the geographical distribution of many species. There is growing evidence that many species are migrating in response to climate change. Changes in the distribution of dominant tree species induced by climate change can have an impact not only on organisms such as epiphytes and understory vegetation, but also on the whole ecosystem. Cyclobalanopsis glauca is a dominant tree species in the mingled evergreen and deciduous broadleaf forests of China. Understanding their adaptive strategies against climate change is important for understanding the future community structure. We employed the Maxent framework to model current suitable habitats of C. glauca under current climate conditions and predicted it onto the climate scenarios for 2041–2060 and 2081–2100 using 315 occurrence data. Our results showed that annual precipitation was the most critical factor for the distribution of C. glauca. In the future, increasing precipitation would reduce the limitation of water on habitats, leading to an expansion of the distribution to a higher latitude and higher altitude. At the same time, there were habitat contractions at the junction of the Jiangxi and Fujian Provinces. This study can provide vital information for the management of C. glauca, and serve as a reminder for managers to protect C. glauca in the range contraction areas.
Highlights
IntroductionClimate change has become an increasingly important driver of species distribution shifts, inevitably affecting species composition and richness [2], and influencing ecosystem structure and functions [3,4,5,6]
Climate is the most important ecological factor affecting plant distribution [1]
The results revealed the annual precipitation (Bio12), which contributed to 78.9%, was the most important environmental variable that affected the distribution of C. glauca (Table S2)
Summary
Climate change has become an increasingly important driver of species distribution shifts, inevitably affecting species composition and richness [2], and influencing ecosystem structure and functions [3,4,5,6]. Climate change driven by rapid anthropogenic disturbances is affecting the abundance and distribution of species [7]. Plants respond to climate change by changing their distribution, such as by migrating to higher latitudes or higher elevations to track suitable environment conditions [8,9,10]. Otherwise, they may face extinction [11]. In the face of this crisis, knowledge about the change in species distribution and the strategies to protect the species is becoming more important
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