1. Effects of climate change on the potential distribution of the threatened relict Dipentodon sinicus of subtropical forests in East Asia: Recommendations for management and conservation
- Author
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Jordi López-Pujol, Yi-Fei Dong, Diao-Shun Huang, Haruka Ohashi, Peng-Bin Han, Cindy Q. Tang, Shuaifeng Li, Tetsuya Matsui, Sonia Herrando-Moraira, Li-Qin Shen, Yun-Fang Li, Yunnan University, Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Generalitat de Catalunya, Yunnan Province, and Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency (Japan)
- Subjects
0106 biological sciences ,Dipentodon sinicus ,Range (biology) ,Climate change ,Subtropics ,010603 evolutionary biology ,01 natural sciences ,Effects of global warming ,lcsh:QH540-549.5 ,Potential habitat ,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics ,Nature and Landscape Conservation ,Ecology ,biology ,010604 marine biology & hydrobiology ,Global warming ,biology.organism_classification ,Dipentodon ,Environmental niche modelling ,Protected areas ,Geography ,Habitat ,Southwestern China ,Threatened species ,Ecological niche modeling ,lcsh:Ecology - Abstract
Dipentodon sinicus Dunn. (Dipentodonaceae) is a rare and threatened relict plant species usually found co-dominating with other relict plants in subtropical forest patches in highly fragmented habitats of southwestern China, northern Vietnam and northeastern Myanmar of East Asia. To date, its management and conservation strategies in the light of climate change have not been explored. We evaluated effects of climate change on the distribution of climatically suitable areas of D. sinicus as found prevailing during the last glacial maximum (LGM), the mid-Holocene and the present time, and predicted the distribution of climatically suitable habitats in 2070 throughout East Asia. The results as derived from ecological niche modeling (ENM) show the current distribution to be limited to the prehistoric (the mid-Holocene and LGM) refugia, and to indicate decreasing probability of presence and a reducing range of distribution for 2070. In addition, the suitable areas predicted with high probability (0.5–1) only account for on average 9.8% of the total area of potential habitats (threshold‒1) among the models for the year 2070, thereby indicating that D. sinicus is highly vulnerable. Under all the future scenarios for the year 2070, 69–74.2% of potential habitats in China would be outside protected areas. We assess and propose priorities for protected areas, and provide suggestions for conservation management strategies., This study received financial support from Science and Technology Department of Yunnan University, China (2019YNU002), the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2015FY210200-15), Ajuts a Grups de Recerca Consolidats” (grants nos. 2014-SGR514-GREB and 2017-SGR1116) from the Generalitat de Catalunya (Spain), Applied Basic Research Foundation of Yunnan Province, China (Grant No. 2019FB058), the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (JPMEERF15S11407) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan, and the Kakenhi Grant Number 15H02833., Highlights Abstract Keywords 1. Introduction 2. Material and methods 2.1. Species 2.2. Occurrence data and ecological niche modeling 3. Results 3.1. Model performance and present potential distribution 3.2. Projected distribution during the mid-Holocene (ca. 6000 yr BP) and LGM (ca. 21,000 yr BP) 3.3. Projected distribution under future climate (2070) 4. Discussion 4.1. Effects of climate change on spatial distribution patterns of D. sinicus 5. Recommendations for future conservation efforts and management Declaration of competing interest Acknowledgements Appendix A. Supplementary data References
- Published
- 2020