Abstract
Glyptostrobus pensilis is a critically endangered living fossil plant species of the Mesozoic era, with high scientific research and economic value. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of climate change on the potential habitat area of G. pensilis in East Asia. The MaxEnt (maximum entropy) model optimized by the ENMeval data package was used to simulate the potential distribution habitats of G. pensilis since the last interglacial period (LIG, 120–140 ka). The results showed that the optimized MaxEnt model has a high prediction accuracy with the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.9843 ± 0.005. The Current highly suitable habitats were found in the Northeast Jiangxi, Eastern Fujian and Eastern Guangdong; the main climatic factors affecting the geographic distribution of G. pensilis are temperature and precipitation, with precipitation as the temperature factor. The minimum temperature of coldest month (Bio6) may be the key factor restricting the northward distribution of G. pensilis; during the LIG, it contracted greatly in the highly suitable habitat area. Mean Diurnal Range (Bio2), Minimum Temperature of Coldest Month (Bio6), Annual Precipitation (Bio12) and Mean Temperature of Driest Quarter (Bio9) may be important climatic factors causing the changes in geographic distribution. In the next four periods, the suitable areas all migrated southward. Except for the RCP2.6-2070s, the highly suitable areas in the other three periods showed varying degrees of shrinkage. The results will provide a theoretical basis for the management and resource protection of G. pensilis.
Highlights
Two thirds of the existing gymnosperms are conifers, which account for more than39% of the world’s forests [1]
The optimization results show that when feature combinations (FCs) = LQ and regularization multiplier (RM) = 1, delta.aICC = 0, the model under this parameter is the optimal model (Table S2)
The suitable habitats of G. pensilis include Vietnam, Laos and South China. This species experienced significant range expansion during last interglacial (LIG) and LGM, but the range contracted slightly during Middle Holocene (MH), which was similar to the current suitable area
Summary
Two thirds of the existing gymnosperms are conifers, which account for more than39% of the world’s forests [1]. Gymnosperms play an important role in the global carbon cycle. They are an important source of wood, medicines and industrial raw materials. Fifty-nine percent of gymnosperms are endangered, so the importance of gymnosperms protection is key to biodiversity conservation [2,3,4]. In most of the Mesozoic Era, gymnosperms dominated the Earth’s land In this geological period, the number and distribution ranges of gymnosperms reached their peaks [5,6]. Multiple glacial and interglacial climatic cycles since the Quaternary have further accelerated the extinction of gymnosperm species and the shrinkage of species richness and distribution range [8,9]. Protecting endangered gymnosperms is an important measure to achieve the global biodiversity conservation strategy
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