Abstract
Climate change profoundly influences species distributions. These effects are evident in poleward latitudinal range shifts for many taxa, and upward altitudinal range shifts for alpine species, that resulted from increased annual global temperatures since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, ca. 22,000 BP). For the latter, the ultimate consequence of upward shifts may be extinction as species in the highest alpine ecosystems can migrate no further, a phenomenon often characterized as “nowhere to go”. To predict responses to climate change of the alpine plants on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP), we used ecological niche modelling (ENM) to estimate the range shifts of 14 Rhodiola species, beginning with the Last Interglacial (ca. 120,000–140,000 BP) through to 2050. Distributions of Rhodiola species appear to be shaped by temperature-related variables. The southeastern QTP, and especially the Hengduan Mountains, were the origin and center of distribution for Rhodiola, and also served as refugia during the LGM. Under future climate scenario in 2050, Rhodiola species might have to migrate upward and northward, but many species would expand their ranges contra the prediction of the “nowhere to go” hypothesis, caused by the appearance of additional potential habitat concomitant with the reduction of permafrost with climate warming.
Highlights
Response to climate change of montane herbaceous plants in the genus Rhodiola predicted by ecological niche modelling
We used three modelling approaches to predict the distributions of Rhodiola species: (1) MEAN ENSEMBLE: using each Global Climate Model (GCM, one GCM for LIG and current, 4 GCMs for LGM, and 17GCMs for 2050, respectively) to do ensemble ecological niche modelling (ENM), and calculated the mean and standard deviation of all predictions; (2) MMM ENSEMBLE: using the multi-model mean (MMM) of all the GCMs to do ensemble ENM; (3) The maximum entropy algorithm, Maxent: using the MMM of all the GCMs to do Maxent modelling
Maxent showed good performance in modelling the distributions of Rhodiola species: the Area Under the Receiver Operator Curve (AUC) values ranged from 0.925 to 0.993 and True Skill Statistic (TSS) values from 0.902 to 0.993, both statistics being significantly higher than would be expected at random (Supplementary Table S2)
Summary
Response to climate change of montane herbaceous plants in the genus Rhodiola predicted by ecological niche modelling. Rising temperatures of the last few decades have shifted the latitudinal and altitudinal ranges of many species[2] This is concerning for alpine species, for which there may not be sufficient suitable alpine habitats at higher altitudes to facilitate their migration. Lenoir et al.[6] investigated 171 plant species in European montane regions, and found that mean elevation of ranges had moved upward by 29 meters per decade, coincident with rapidly rising temperatures occurring after 1986 These altitudinal shifts were faster for species adapted to montane regions than for more broadly-distributed species and for herbaceous plants compared to woody plants[6,7]. More research is required to fully explore the effects of global warming on alpine plants
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