Ecological Indicators (Mar 2022)
Effects of climate change on richness distribution patterns of threatened conifers endemic to China
Abstract
Climate change inevitably affects the geographical distribution of species on earth. Conifers, which are important components of forest tree species, are highly threatened and particularly sensitive to climate change. Approximately 23.6% (145/615 species) of the world’s conifers are native to China, among which 53 species are threatened. Thus, understanding the impact of climate change on the species richness and distribution of threatened conifers endemic to China (hereafter referred to as threatened conifers) is of great importance. Here, we investigated the habitat suitability under present climate conditions and predicted the impact of future climate change on these threatened conifers using species distribution modeling. Combined with the current natural reserve system, we evaluated the conservation effectiveness, determined the key conservation areas, and proposed suggestions for the future protection of these threatened conifers. Our results showed that the threatened conifers were mainly distributed in mountainous areas and climate variables played a major role in the distribution of these threatened conifers. We also found that the richness hotspots were predicted to shrink and move northward with a changing climate. The lowest elevation of threatened conifers predicted to contract their species range mainly occurred below 1000 m or above 2000 m, while most species whose lowest elevations ranged from 1000 to 2000 m were projected to expand their distribution areas under the future climate scenario. Therefore, different conservation measures should be taken for threatened conifers with different distribution patterns. The central Hengduan Mountains and the Western Sichuan Plateau were identified as “areas needing attention” and “areas worth exploring”, respectively, which should be given more attention in future field surveys and conservation efforts. This study highlighted the critical role of these threatened conifers as good indicators for measuring and proposing conservation strategies to minimize the impacts of climate change.
