Potential habitat areas and priority protected areas of Tilia amurensis Rupr in China under the context of climate change

Fen-Guo Zhang; Sanqing Zhang; Kefan Wu; Ruxia Zhao; Guanghua Zhao; Yongji Wang

doi:10.3389/fpls.2024.1365264

Potential habitat areas and priority protected areas of Tilia amurensis Rupr in China under the context of climate change

Front Plant Sci. 2024 Mar 15:15:1365264. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2024.1365264. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Fen-Guo Zhang¹, Sanqing Zhang¹, Kefan Wu¹, Ruxia Zhao¹, Guanghua Zhao², Yongji Wang¹

Affiliations

¹ College of Life Science, Shanxi Engineering Research Center of Microbial Application Technologies, Shanxi Normal University, Taiyuan, Shanxi, China.
² Administrative Office, Shanwei Middle School, Shanwei, China.

Abstract

Introduction: Tilia amurensis Rupr (T. amurensis) is one endangered and national class II key protected wild plant in China. It has ornamental, material, economic, edible and medicinal values. At present, the resources of T. amurensis are decreasing, and the prediction of the distribution of its potential habitat in China can provide a theoretical basis for the cultivation and rational management of this species.

Methods: In this study, the R language was used to evaluate 358 distribution records and 38 environment variables. The MaxEnt model was used to predict the potential distribution areas of T. amurensis under the current and future climate scenarios. The dominant environmental factors affecting the distribution of T. amurensis were analyzed and the Marxan model was used to plan the priority protected areas of this species.

Results: The results showed that Bio18, Slope, Elev, Bio1, Bio9 and Bio2 were the dominant environmental factors affecting the distribution of T. amurensis. Under the future climatic scenarios, the potential suitable areas for T. amurensis will mainly distribute in the Northeast China, the total suitable area will reduce compared with the current climate scenarios, and the general trend of the centroid of suitable habitat will be towards higher latitudes. The SPF value of the best plan obtained from the priority conservation area planning was 1.1, the BLM value was 127,616, and the priority conservation area was about 57.61×10⁴ km². The results suggested that climate, soil and topographic factors jointly affected the potential geographical distribution of T. amurensis, and climate and topographic factors had greater influence than soil factors.

Discussion: The total suitable area of T. amurensis in China under different climate scenarios in the future will decrease, so more effective protection should be actively adopted.

Keywords: Marxan model; MaxEnt model; Tilia amurensis Rupr; dominant environmental factor; suitable area.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41801027 and 31700434), the Fundamental Research Program of Shanxi Province (202203021211250 and 202203021211252), the Fund Program for the Scientific Activities of Selected Returned Overseas Professionals in Shanxi Province (20230025 and 20230027), the Research Project Supported by Shanxi Scholarship Council of China (2023-110), and Shanxi Normal University 2023 Graduate Student Research and Innovation Program (2023XSY062 and 2023XSY063).