Multi-Directional Rather Than Unidirectional Northward-Dominant Range Shifts Predicted under Climate Change for 99 Chinese Tree Species

Abstract

Climate change has a profound impact on the distribution of species on Earth. At present, there are two contrasting views explaining the direction of species range shifts. One is a single poleward (northward in the Northern Hemisphere) view, while the other is a multi-directional view (e.g., westward, southward, and eastward). Exploring the universality of these two views has become a key focus in climate change ecology. Here, we study the habitat range shift velocity of 99 tree species in China under future climate change scenarios using a bioclimatic envelope model (also called species distribution model) and a climate velocity method. A Monte Carlo method is used to test the consistency between the range shift pattern and stochastic process, and confusion matrices and kappa values are calculated to evaluate the consistency between the bioclimatic envelope model and climate velocity method. The results indicate that the tree species in China are generally expected to shift northwards, with northwest and northeast directions accounting for a larger proportion. The northward-shifting species are mainly distributed in the east monsoon region of China, while the multi-directional shifting species are mainly distributed in the alpine and arid regions of China. The shift directions described by the bioclimatic envelope model are inconsistent with those described by the climate velocity method. The results imply that the tree species in China support the view of the northward shift pattern but, more specifically, should be considered in terms of a multi-directional northward shift pattern. The results also emphasize that the inter-species variation in climate tolerance has been largely ignored in physical-based climate velocity methods. The development of a biological and vector operation-based climate velocity indicator may be more useful in characterizing the range shifts of species, compared to existing physical and scalar operation-based climate velocity indicators. This study provides favorable evidence for the pattern of climate change-induced range shifts in China, as well as in Eastern Asia.