The ability of Nature Reserves to conserve medicinal plant resources: A case study in northeast China

Abstract

Medicinal plants are important resources and are under serious threat due to human interference and climate change. We used species richness maps to find hotspots of medicinal plant localities and then modeled the environmental variables with a large effect on their distribution. We began by using a combination of species distribution models (SDMs) and geographic information system (GIS) tools to generate species richness maps of medicinal plants in northeast China. First, we conducted a detailed investigation of 2884 study plots in northeast China and selected 49 medicinal plant species for further analysis. The field surveys performed for this study spanned four years and identified a large number of new populations of medicinal plants in the forests of northeast China. We modeled and mapped the potential distributions of these 49 species and found that species richness hotspots are concentrated in the eastern and northeastern areas of the study region. We then analyzed the results of jackknife tests and found that the most important environmental variables on medicinal plant distribution are related to precipitation. Finally, we used the geographic distribution of medicinal plant richness to evaluate the ability of existing Nature Reserves to conserve these plants. By acquiring model data and using SDM and GIS to evaluate the current distribution and richness of medicinal plants, we are able to evaluate their current protection status and make recommendations about their utilization. This analysis could be expanded to assess medicinal plant populations in other regions where there are adequate records of the current distribution of medicinal plants.