Fereshteh Babaei; Ataollah Ebrahimi; Ali Asghar Naghipour; Maryam Haidarian
Abstract
Climate change is one of the main determinants of plant species redistribution and biodiversity loss. This study aims to predict the impacts of climate change on the geographic distribution of Agropyron intermedium in Chaharmahal-va-Bakhtiari province as a part of Central Zagros, Iran. The presence points ...
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Climate change is one of the main determinants of plant species redistribution and biodiversity loss. This study aims to predict the impacts of climate change on the geographic distribution of Agropyron intermedium in Chaharmahal-va-Bakhtiari province as a part of Central Zagros, Iran. The presence points of studied species were recorded from our field surveys in the studied area. In this study, we used the ensemble predictions based on five species distribution models. The future projections were made for the year 2070 with three scenarios SSP126, SSP370, and SSP585, and two general circulation models GFDL-ESM4 and MRI-ESM2-0. According to the results, Random forest model and the generalized boosted model were recognized as the most reliable models for predicting species distribution. The most effective variables in the suitability of the A. intermedium species habitat were, respectively, elevation, Precipitation of wettest month, and slope. According to the finding, about 21.26% of the study area for A. intermedium species have had suitable habitats. The decline of suitable habitats of A. intermedium will be 36.06% to 63.20% under the GFDL-ESM4 general circulation model and 36.69% to 65.17% under MRI- ESM2 general circulation model due to climate change. The results also indicated that climate change will alter the range size of studied species and will probably shift to higher elevations in the future. The results of this study can be used to protect the habitat of the range plant species, as well as its rehabilitation and restoration.
sadaf sayadi; siavash naghizadeh; Hossein moradi zeinab; ahmadreza mehrabian; hossein mostafavi
Abstract
The climate change is the greatest environmental challenge facing the world today. The prediction of the effect of climate change on the distribution of sensitive and valuable plant species is considered important in the management and conservation of them. Onosma L. as a very rich taxa from Lithospermeae ...
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The climate change is the greatest environmental challenge facing the world today. The prediction of the effect of climate change on the distribution of sensitive and valuable plant species is considered important in the management and conservation of them. Onosma L. as a very rich taxa from Lithospermeae Dumort. tribe in Boraginaceae family including 52 species in Iran wich more than half of them are endemic to Iran. The Onosma sabalanica Ponert. and Onosma cornuta H. Riedl. are the rare and endemic species of Onosma L. in Iran. Objective of the present study was to predict the effects of the climate change on the spatial distribution of these plants at future. In this regard, with using species distribution model's tool (SDM), different algorithms (GLM, GAM, GBM, RF, CTA, FDA, MARS, ANN, SRE) in different optimistic (RCP2.6) and pessimistic (RCP8.5) scenarios predicted the future spatial distribution of this species for 2050 by an ensemble model in R statistical software. The results showed that the performance of all models based on TSS index was excellent and modeling of the distribution of the species had been done with high statistical reliability. The results also represented that the distribution of these species in both optimistic and pessimistic scenarios of 2050 had been significantly reduced which requires to apply strategies for protecting of this valuable plants.