Suitable habitat prediction with a huge set of variables on some Central Asian tulips

Abstract

Tulipa (Liliaceae) is cultivated as an ornamental plant worldwide and its wild representatives hold valuable genetic resources for breeders are facing the effects of climate change in Central Asia like all of wild plant species. Therefore, the effects of climate change on two Central Asian species (T. korolkowii Regel and T. lehmanniana Mercklin) plus the current suitable habitat for two endemics (T. intermedia Tojibaev and J.J. de Groot, T. scharipovii Tojibaev) to Uzbekistan and one endemic (T. ferganica Vved.) to Ferghana Valley were investigated in the study. Because endemic species are valuable for any territory, we cannot trust a limited number of variables that are commonly used for modeling distribution of species. For that, 41 bioclimatic and ecologic variables were utilized in the investigation. The results showed that T. lehmanniana is a species most affected by climate change, while T. korolkowii appears low necessity for its conservation action. Tulipa ferganica mainly grows in some protected areas of Kyrgyzstan which cannot provide protection against climate change and this may help to mitigate its extinction caused by human-driven disturbance. Thus, the conservation implications of these results are discussed.

Keywords

• tulipa
• conservation
• climate change
• species distribution model