Predicting the Potential Habitat Distribution of Relict Plant Davidia involucrata in China Based on the MaxEnt Model

作者：Tianxiang Wang, Wenting Li, Hongxia Cui, Yunrui Song, Changyong Liu, Qing Yan, Yaoxing Wu, Yihang Jia, Lizheng Fang, Lianghua Qi · 发表于：Forests · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.3390/f15020272 · 被引用次数：14 · 研究领域：Species Distribution and Climate Change、Plant and animal studies、Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies

Davidia involucrata Baill. 1871 (D. involucrata), as a tertiary relict plant unique to China, is a national Class I protected plant with high economic value. Oil extracted from its seeds and peels can be used for both consumption and industrial purposes. It has become a popular income-earning export tree in China because of its graceful posture and beautiful white bracts. Climate change affects the distribution of the species’ potential habitat areas. Thus, studying its natural distribution pattern and future potential habitat distribution changes has great significance for the sustainable resource utilization and biodiversity conservation of D. involucrata. Here, we employed the MaxEnt model and ArcGIS software to predict the current and future (the 2050s and 2070s) potential habitats of D. involucrata via 130 species distribution records and 37 environmental variables. Meanwhile, we used the jackknife method to assess the importance of environmental factors. Our results showed the following: (1) When the RM = 4 and FC = LQHPT, the MaxEnt model exhibited the lowest complexity and overfitting degree while achieving high model prediction accuracy. The area under the curve (AUC) value of the simulated training was 0.958, indicating an excellent forecast. (2) Under the current climate scenario, D. involucrata was mainly concentrated in eastern Sichuan, western Hubei, northern Guizhou, and northwestern Hunan, with an area of 98.02 × 104 km2. (3) The precipitation in the warmest q...