Abstract
Climate change has caused shifts in species’ ranges and extinctions of high-latitude and altitude species. Most cold-tolerant evergreen broadleaved woody plants (shortened to cold-evergreens below) are rare species occurring in a few sites in the alpine and subalpine zones in the Korean Peninsula. The aim of this research is to 1) identify climate factors controlling the range of cold-evergreens in the Korean Peninsula; and 2) predict the climate change effects on the range of cold-evergreens. We used multimodel inference based on combinations of climate variables to develop distribution models of cold-evergreens at a physiognomic-level. Presence/absence data of 12 species at 204 sites and 6 climatic factors, selected from among 23 candidate variables, were used for modeling. Model uncertainty was estimated by mapping a total variance calculated by adding the weighted average of within-model variation to the between-model variation. The range of cold-evergreens and model performance were validated by true skill statistics, the receiver operating characteristic curve and the kappa statistic. Climate change effects on the cold-evergreens were predicted according to the RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios. Multimodel inference approach excellently projected the spatial distribution of cold-evergreens (AUC = 0.95, kappa = 0.62 and TSS = 0.77). Temperature was a dominant factor in model-average estimates, while precipitation was minor. The climatic suitability increased from the southwest, lowland areas, to the northeast, high mountains. The range of cold-evergreens declined under climate change. Mountain-tops in the south and most of the area in the north remained suitable in 2050 and 2070 under the RCP 4.5 projection and 2050 under the RCP 8.5 projection. Only high-elevations in the northeastern Peninsula remained suitable under the RCP 8.5 projection. A northward and upper-elevational range shift indicates change in species composition at the alpine and subalpine ecosystems in the Korean Peninsula.
Highlights
Global climate change is a pivotal environmental issue for human well-being, economic growth, and nature conservation [1]
Thermophilous species were relatively successful in colonizing high summits, but the coldadapted species declined in the European mountain system [15,16,17,18]
We find that little research has investigated the most influential climatic factors controlling the distributions of cold-evergreen species in the Korean Peninsula despite the need for such information to support long-term management
Summary
Global climate change is a pivotal environmental issue for human well-being, economic growth, and nature conservation [1]. Much research has reported that climate change has caused changes in phenological events, species’ range shifts, and habitat loss of high-latitude and altitude species [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. It was predicted that plants in Arctic and alpine regions would advance timing of spring phenological events under climate changes [10]. Long-term ecological research in mountain ecosystems has showed the upward and poleward range expansion or migration of plant species under climate change [11,12,13,14]. Studies implemented in European mountain ranges reported the upward range shift of plants from lower elevations showed an overall reduction in the European mountain flora [11,12,13]. Tropical plants shifted their range upslope and higher latitude under climate change, which decreased species diversity in lower elevations [2, 5, 8, 9, 21]
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