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Climate change is a vital driver of biodiversity patterns and species distributions, understanding how organisms respond to climate change will shed light on the conservation of endangered species. In this study, the MaxEnt model was used to predict the potential suitable area of 12 threatened medicinal plants in the QTP (Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau) under the current and future (2050s, 2070s) three climate scenarios (RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP8.5). The results showed that the climatically suitable habitats for the threatened medicinal plants were primarily found in the eastern, southeast, southern, and some parts of the central regions on the QTP. Moreover, 25% of the threatened medicinal plants would have reduced suitable habitat areas within the next 30–50 years in the different future global warming scenarios. Among these medicinal plants, RT (Rheum tanguticum) would miss the most habitat (98.97%), while the RAN (Rhododendron anthopogonoides) would miss the least habitat (10.15%). Nevertheless, 33.3% of the threatened medicinal plants showed an increase in their future habitat area because of their physiological characteristics which are more adaptable to a wide range of climates. The climatic suitable habitat for 50% of the threatened medicinal plants would migrate to higher altitudes or higher latitudes regions. This study provides a data foundation for the conservation of biodiversity and wild medicinal plants on the QTP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A thorough understanding of the levels and partitioning of genetic variation across populations and geographical regions of endangered species is a prerequisite to ensure effective conservation and/or restoration activities. Here, we examined chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) trnH-psbA intergenic spacer sequences variation within Notopterygium forbesii, an endangered and endemic perennial herb in China. Sequence data obtained from 141 individuals in 14 populations revealed twenty-two haplotypes. A high level of haplotype diversity (Hd = 0.81) and low level of nucleotide diversity (Pi = 0.0047) were detected. Low genetic differentiation among populations and also among regions was consistently indicated by both hierarchical analyses of molecular variance (AMOVA) and the structure of a neighbor-joining tree. Low level of population differentiation between populations or between regions in cpDNA sequences may be due to effects of the abundance of ancestral haplotype sharing and the high number of private haplotypes fixed for each population. Based on our results, we proposed some conservation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]