Predictions of potential geographical distribution and quality of Schisandra sphenanthera under climate change

Yanlong Guo; Haiyan Wei; Chunyan Lu; Bei Gao; Wei Gu

doi:10.7717/peerj.2554

Predictions of potential geographical distribution and quality of Schisandra sphenanthera under climate change

PeerJ. 2016 Oct 20:4:e2554. doi: 10.7717/peerj.2554. eCollection 2016.

Authors

Yanlong Guo¹, Haiyan Wei², Chunyan Lu³, Bei Gao⁴, Wei Gu⁵

Affiliations

¹ National Engineering laboratory for Resource Development of Endangered Chinese Crude Drugs in Northwest of China, Shaanxi Normal University, Xian, China; Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, China; College of Tourism and Environment, Shaanxi Normal University, Xian, China.
² College of Tourism and Environment, Shaanxi Normal University , Xian , China.
³ Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, College of Computer and Information Sciences , Fuzhou , China.
⁴ National Engineering laboratory for Resource Development of Endangered Chinese Crude Drugs in Northwest of China, Shaanxi Normal University, Xian, China; College of Tourism and Environment, Shaanxi Normal University, Xian, China.
⁵ National Engineering laboratory for Resource Development of Endangered Chinese Crude Drugs in Northwest of China, Shaanxi Normal University, Xian, China; College of Life Sciences, Shaanxi Normal University, Xian, China.

Abstract

Climate change will significantly affect plant distribution as well as the quality of medicinal plants. Although numerous studies have analyzed the effect of climate change on future habitats of plants through species distribution models (SDMs), few of them have incorporated the change of effective content of medicinal plants. Schisandra sphenanthera Rehd. et Wils. is an endangered traditional Chinese medical plant which is mainly located in the Qinling Mountains. Combining fuzzy theory and a maximum entropy model, we obtained current spatial distribution of quality assessment for S. spenanthera. Moreover, the future quality and distribution of S. spenanthera were also projected for the periods 2020s, 2050s and 2080s under three different climate change scenarios (SRES-A1B, SRES-A2 and SRES-B1 emission scenarios) described in the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) of IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). The results showed that the moderately suitable habitat of S. sphenanthera under all climate change scenarios remained relatively stable in the study area. The highly suitable habitat of S. sphenanthera would gradually decrease in the future and a higher decline rate of the highly suitable habitat area would occur under climate change scenarios SRES-A1B and SRES-A2. The result suggested that in the study area, there would be no more highly suitable habitat areas for S. sphenanthera when the annual mean temperature exceeds 20 °C or its annual precipitation exceeds 1,200 mm. Our results will be influential in the future ecological conservation and management of S. sphenanthera and can be taken as a reference for habitat suitability assessment research for other medicinal plants.

Keywords: Climate change; Fuzzy membership function; GIS; Medicinal plants; Schisandra sphenanthera; Species distribution modeling.

Grants and funding

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.31070293), the National Eleventh-Five Year Science and Technology Support Program from Ministry of Science and the Technology of the People’s Republic of China (No.2006BAI06A13-06). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.