Predicting Possible Distribution of Tea (Camellia sinensis L.) under Climate Change Scenarios Using MaxEnt Model in China

Yuncheng Zhao,Lei Zhang,Chunyi Wang,Mingyue Zhao,Yinlong Xu

doi:10.3390/agriculture11111122

Abstract

Climate change has dramatic impacts on the growth and the geographical distribution of tea (Camellia sinensis L.). Assessing the potential distribution of tea will help decision makers to formulate appropriate adaptation measures to use the altered climatic resources and avoid the damage from climate hazards. The objective in this study is to model the current and future distribution of tea species based on the four SSPs scenarios using the MaxEnt model in China. For the modeling procedure, tea growth records in 410 sites and 9 climate variables were used in this paper. The area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) was used to evaluate the performance of the model. The AUC value was over 0.9 in this study, showing the excellent simulation result of the model. In relation to the current distribution, areas of 82.01 × 104 km2 (8.51% of total land area in China), 115.97 × 104 km2 (12.03% of total land area in China), and 67.14 × 104 km2 (6.97% of total land area in China) were recognized as Marginal, Medium, and Optimal climate suitable habitats for tea over China. Compared to the current distribution, most of the Optimal suitability areas in southeast China would be lost in four scenarios. The area of Marginal and Medium suitable habitats would expand in SSP370 and SSP585, especially in 2041–2061 and 2081–2100. The suitable area of tea would expand northwards and westwards, suggesting that additional new suitable habitats could be created for tea production with the future climate change, especially in Shandong, Henan, Guizhou, and Yunnan Provinces. This research would provide vital scientific understanding for policy making on tea production, tea garden site chosen and adopyion of adaptation methods in the future.

Highlights

Global climate change is happening at an unprecedented speed, which is partially accelerated by human activities
The main conclusions are as follows: (1) area under the curve (AUC) value was over 0.9, which reveals that the model performance was excellent to predict the future suitable habitats of tea
The nine dominant climate factors were selected by correlation analysis and Jackknife test, in which bio14 (Precipitation of Driest Month) contributed the most, accounting for 63.9%, and bio7 was the most important to predict tea distribution, with the permutation importance accounting for 51%. (2) Under the current climatic condition, tea distribution areas were mainly located from south of Hainan to the north of Shandong province, including 20 provinces or autonomous regions

Summary

Introduction

Global climate change is happening at an unprecedented speed, which is partially accelerated by human activities. Panel on Climate Change) report that temperature of global surface in 2011–2020 was. In China, the annual average temperature increased at a rate of about. Tea (Camellia sinensis L.) is widely distributed in tropical and subtropical mountainous areas over 50 countries and regions all over the world [3]. In China, the long history of tea cultivation and suitable environment provide favorable conditions for tea production, the yield and area of tea have been rising continuously and the tea industry has been booming in recent years [4]. As a green cash crop, the successful cultivation of tea is highly dependent on climate conditions, including moderate temperature, rainfall, solar radiation and so on [5,6,7]. Han et al [8] found that tea yield will decrease by 11% to 35%

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Results

Conclusion