scholarly journals Prediction of the Suitable Area of the Chinese White Pines (Pinus subsect. Strobus) under Climate Changes and Implications for Their Conservation

Forests ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 996
Author(s):  
Lele Lin ◽  
Jian He ◽  
Lei Xie ◽  
Guofa Cui

White pines (Pinus subsect. Strobus) play important roles in forest ecosystems in the Northern Hemisphere. Species of this group are narrowly distributed or endangered in China. In this study, we used a species distribution model (SDM) to project and predict the distribution patterns of the 12 species of Chinese white pine under a variety of paleoclimatic and future climate change scenarios based on 39 high-resolution environmental variables and 1459 distribution records. We also computed the centroid shift, range expansion/contraction, and suitability change of the current distribution area to assess the potential risk to each species in the future. The modeling results revealed that the suitable habitat of each species is consistent with but slightly larger than its actual distribution range and that temperature, precipitation, and UV radiation are important determining factors for the distribution of different white pine species. The results indicate that the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) greatly affected the current distribution of the Chinese white pine species. Additionally, it was predicted that under the future climate change scenarios, there will be a reduction in the area of habitats suitable for P. armandii, P. morrisonicola, and P. mastersiana. Furthermore, some of the current distribution sites of P. armandii, P. kwangtungensis, P. mastersiana, P. morrisonicola, P. sibirica, and P. wallichiana were predicted to become more unsuitable under these scenarios. These results indicate that some Chinese white pine species, such as P. armandii, P. morrisonicola, and P. mastersiana, may have a very high risk of population shrinkage in the future. Overall, this study provided relevant data for the long-term conservation (both in situ and ex situ) and sustainable management of Chinese white pine species.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 462
Author(s):  
Muhammad Hadi Saputra ◽  
Han Soo Lee

This study aims to assess the impact of climate change on the distribution of Styrax sumatrana in North Sumatra by applying the maximum entropy (MaxEnt) model with biophysical factors (elevation, slope, aspect, and soil), climatic factors (19 bioclimate data sets for 2050 and 2070), and anthropogenic factors (land use land cover (LULC) changes in 2050 and 2070). The future climate data retrieved and used are the output of four climate models from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5), namely, the CCSM4, CNRM-CM5, MIROC5, and MRI-CGCM3 models, under the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios. The MaxEnt modelling results showed the importance of the mean temperature of the coldest quarter and the LULC variables. Styrax sumatrana rely on environmental conditions with air temperatures ranging from 13 to 19 °C. The potentially suitable land types for Styrax sumatrana are shrubs, gardens, and forests. The future predictions show that the suitable habitat for Styrax sumatrana is predicted to decrease to 3.87% in 2050 and to 3.54% in 2070 under the RCP4.5 scenario. Under the RCP8.5 scenario, the suitable area is predicted to decrease to 3.04% in 2050 and to 1.36% in 2070, respectively. The degradation of the suitable area is mainly due to increasing temperature and deforestation in future predictions. The modelling results illustrate that the suitable habitats of Styrax sumatrana are likely to be reduced under future climate change scenarios or lost in 2070 under the RCP8.5 scenario. The potential future extinction of this species should alert authorities to formulate conservation strategies. Results also demonstrated key variables that should be used for formulating ex situ conservation strategies.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Fuller ◽  
Claire Scannell ◽  
Victoria Ramsey ◽  
Rebecca Parfitt ◽  
Nicola Golding

<p>In 2018, the UN estimated that around 55% of the world’s population currently live within urban areas, with this value projected to rise to 60% by 2030 (United Nations, 2018). High levels of urbanisation, coupled with an increasing trend in extreme weather under future climate change scenarios, combine to create significant challenges to increasing urban resilience for the future (Masson et al., 2020).</p><p>Urban climate services provide tools to support decision making at a range of scales across the city, from day-to-day operations to informing urban design over longer timescales (Grimmond et al., 2015). Whilst urban climate services may be developed at a range of scales (Grimmond et al., 2020), this presentation looks at a prototype climate service which provides long-term climate change projections at the city-specific scale. The ‘City Pack’ was developed through a process of co-production, in which project development aims to move away from a one-way push of scientific information, to a two-way collaborative process of knowledge construction and sharing (Vincent et al., 2019).</p><p>This ‘City Pack’ service was co-developed by the Met Office and Bristol City Council following an assessment of the Council’s climate information needs. The City Pack comprises of three non-technical factsheets which explain how the climate of Bristol has changed and will continue to change into the 21<sup>st</sup> Century based on the UKCP climate projections. The City Pack’s primary aims are to raise awareness of how a cities climate may change in the future and to inform the development of city resilience whilst also providing a tool to be used by city stakeholders to raise awareness of climate change across the council. The audience for the City Pack therefore includes city officials, city planners and the general public. The Bristol City Pack has since provided an evidence base for the Bristol City Council Climate Change Risk Assessment and informed Bristol’s Climate Strategy. In addition, the City Pack has been used to engage with the council’s wider stakeholders and also as a communication and training tool. As such, whilst the co-production of a climate service may be time and resource intensive, the process may also be rewarded with the production of a highly tailored and user-relevant tool.</p><p>Following the success of the prototype ‘City Pack’ service for Bristol City Council, the Met Office are continuing to produce City Packs for additional cities across the UK, and also in China. The project is seeking to ascertain if services which are co-produced with and bespoke to one set of stakeholders, may provide an equally valuable service for other cities and if so, how can we make these services scalable.</p>


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Heliot Zarza ◽  
Enrique Martínez-Meyer ◽  
Gerardo Suzán ◽  
Gerardo Ceballos

Veterinaria México OA ISSN: 2448-6760Cite this as:Zarza H, Martínez-Meyer E, Suzán G, Ceballos G. Geographic distribution of Desmodus rotundus in Mexico under current and future climate change scenarios: Implications for bovine paralytic rabies infection. Veterinaria México OA. 2017;4(3). doi: 10.21753/vmoa.4.3.390.Climate change may modify the spatial distribution of reservoirs hosting emerging and reemerging zoonotic pathogens, and forecasting these changes is essential for developing prevention and adaptation strategies. The most important reservoir of bovine paralytic rabies in tropical countries, is the vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus). In Mexico, the cattle industry loses more than $2.6 million US dollar, annually to this infectious disease. Therefore, we predicted the change in the distribution of D. rotundus due to future climate change scenarios, and examined the likely effect that the change in its distribution will have on paralytic rabies infections in Mexico. We used the correlative maximum entropy based model algorithm to predict the potential distribution of D. rotundus. Consistent with the literature, our results showed that temperature was the variable most highly associated with the current distribution of vampire bats. The highest concentration of bovine rabies was in Central and Southeastern Mexico, regions that also have high cattle population densities. Furthermore, our climatic envelope models predicted that by 2050–2070, D. rotundus will lose 20 % of its current distribution while the northern and central regions of Mexico will become suitable habitats for D. rotundus. Together, our study provides an advanced notice of the likely change in spatial patterns of D. rotundus and bovine paralytic rabies, and presents an important tool for strengthening the National Epidemiological Surveillance System and Monitoring programmes, useful for establishing holistic, long-term strategies to control this disease in Mexico.Figure 4. Modelled suitability for future distribution of Desmodus rotundus according to Global Climate Model GFDL-CM3 for two time periods (2050 and 2070), and two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP 4.5 and 8.5). Left-hand column shows suitability values, with blue indicating more suitable conditions.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongfei Xie ◽  
JUNFANG ZHAO ◽  
Jianyong Ma ◽  
Weixiong Yan

Abstract Background At present, global warming is an indisputable fact, and more and more attention has been paid to the impacts of climate warming on global ecological environments. Forests play increasing significant roles in regulating global carbon balance and mitigating climate change. Therefore, to understand the response mechanisms of the carbon budget of global forest ecosystems to future climate change, an improved version of the FORest ecosystem Carbon budget model for CHiNa (FORCCHN) and future Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenario RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 were applied in this study.Results The global forest ecosystems will play a major role in the carbon sink under the future two climate change scenarios. In particular, the average carbon budget (namely the Net Ecosystem Productivity, NEP) of global forest ecosystems under RCP4.5 scenario was estimated to be 0.017 kg(C)·m− 2·yr− 1 from 2006 to 2100. The future carbon sink areas of global forest ecosystems will increase significantly. Under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 climate scenarios, the carbon sink areas of global forest ecosystems during 2026–2100 would be significantly higher than those in 2006–2025, with increases of 83.16–87.26% and 23.53–29.70%, respectively. The impacts of future climate change on NEP of global forest ecosystems will significantly vary between different regions. The NEP of forests will be enhanced in the northern hemisphere and significantly weakened in the southern hemisphere under the future two climate change scenarios. The carbon sink regions of global forests will be mainly distributed in the middle and high latitudes of the northern hemisphere. In particular, the forests'NEP in northeastern and central Asia, northern Europe and western North America will increase by 40%~80%. However, the NEP of forests will decrease by 20%~40% in the most regions of the southern hemisphere. In northern South America and central Africa, the forests' NEP will be reduced by more than 40%.Conclusions The global forest ecosystems will play a major role in the carbon sink under the future two climate change scenarios. However, the NEP of forests will be enhanced in the northern hemisphere and significantly weakened in the southern hemisphere. In the future, in some areas of southern hemisphere, where the forests' NEP was predicted to be reduced, some measures for improving forest carbon sink, such as strengthening forest tending, enforcing prohibiting deforestation laws and scientific forest management, and so on, should be implemented to ensure immediate mitigation and adaptation to climate change.


Author(s):  
Pedram Mahdavi ◽  
Hossein Ghorbanizadeh Kharazi ◽  
Hossein Eslami ◽  
Narges Zohrabi ◽  
Majid Razaz

Abstract Global warming affected by human activities causes changes in the regime of rivers. Rivers are one of the most vital sources that supply fresh water. Therefore, management, planning, and proper use of rivers will be crucial for future climate change conditions. This study investigated the monitoring of hydrological drought in a future period to examine the impact of climate change on the discharging flow of the Zard River basin in Iran. Zard River is an important supplier of fresh and agricultural water in a vast area of Khuzestan province in Iran. A continuous rainfall-runoff model based on Soil Moisture Accounting (SMA) algorithm was applied to simulate the discharge flow under 10 scenarios (obtained from LARS-WG.6 software) of future climate change. Then, the Stream-flow Drought Index (SDI) and the Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) were calculated for each climate change scenario for the future period (2041–2060). The results of the meteorological drought assessment showed that near normal and moderate droughts had higher proportions among other drought conditions. Moreover, the hydrological drought assessment showed the occurrence of two new droughts (severe and extreme) conditions for the future period (2041–2060) that has never happened in the past (1997–2016).


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lina Caballero-Villalobos ◽  
Francisco Fajardo-Gutiérrez ◽  
Mariasole Calbi ◽  
Gustavo A. Silva-Arias

It is predicted that climate change will strongly affect plant distributions in high elevation “sky islands” of tropical Andes. Polylepis forests are a dominant element of the treeline throughout the Andes Cordillera in South America. However, little is known about the climatic factors underlying the current distribution of Polylepis trees and the possible effect of global climate change. The species Polylepis quadrijuga is endemic to the Colombian Eastern Cordillera, where it plays a fundamental ecological role in high-altitude páramo-forest ecotones. We sought to evaluate the potential distribution of P. quadrijuga under future climate change scenarios using ensemble modeling approaches. We conducted a comprehensive assessment of future climatic projections deriving from 12 different general circulation models (GCMs), four Representative Concentration Pathways (R) emissions scenarios, and two different time frames (2041–2060 and 2061–2080). Additionally, based on the future projections, we evaluate the effectiveness of the National System of Protected Natural Areas of Colombia (SINAP) and Páramo Complexes of Colombia (PCC) in protecting P. quadrijuga woodlands. Here, we compiled a comprehensive set of observations of P. quadrijuga and study them in connection with climatic and topographic variables to identify environmental predictors of the species distribution, possible habitat differentiation throughout the geographic distribution of the species, and predict the effect of different climate change scenarios on the future distribution of P. quadrijuga. Our results predict a dramatic loss of suitable habitat due to climate change on this key tropical Andean treeline species. The ensemble Habitat Suitability Modeling (HSM) shows differences in suitable scores among north and south regions of the species distribution consistent with differences in topographic features throughout the available habitat of P. quadrijuga. Future projections of the HSM predicted the Páramo complex “Sumapaz-Cruz Verde” as a major area for the long-term conservation of P. quadrijuga because it provides a wide range of suitable habitats for the different evaluated climate change scenarios. We provide the first set of priority areas to perform both in situ and ex situ conservation efforts based on suitable habitat projections.


Agriculture ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 1122
Author(s):  
Yuncheng Zhao ◽  
Mingyue Zhao ◽  
Lei Zhang ◽  
Chunyi Wang ◽  
Yinlong Xu

Climate change has dramatic impacts on the growth and the geographical distribution of tea (Camellia sinensis L.). Assessing the potential distribution of tea will help decision makers to formulate appropriate adaptation measures to use the altered climatic resources and avoid the damage from climate hazards. The objective in this study is to model the current and future distribution of tea species based on the four SSPs scenarios using the MaxEnt model in China. For the modeling procedure, tea growth records in 410 sites and 9 climate variables were used in this paper. The area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) was used to evaluate the performance of the model. The AUC value was over 0.9 in this study, showing the excellent simulation result of the model. In relation to the current distribution, areas of 82.01 × 104 km2 (8.51% of total land area in China), 115.97 × 104 km2 (12.03% of total land area in China), and 67.14 × 104 km2 (6.97% of total land area in China) were recognized as Marginal, Medium, and Optimal climate suitable habitats for tea over China. Compared to the current distribution, most of the Optimal suitability areas in southeast China would be lost in four scenarios. The area of Marginal and Medium suitable habitats would expand in SSP370 and SSP585, especially in 2041–2061 and 2081–2100. The suitable area of tea would expand northwards and westwards, suggesting that additional new suitable habitats could be created for tea production with the future climate change, especially in Shandong, Henan, Guizhou, and Yunnan Provinces. This research would provide vital scientific understanding for policy making on tea production, tea garden site chosen and adopyion of adaptation methods in the future.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nabaz R. Khwarahm

Abstract Background The oak tree (Quercus aegilops) comprises ~ 70% of the oak forests in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). Besides its ecological importance as the residence for various endemic and migratory species, Q. aegilops forest also has socio-economic values—for example, as fodder for livestock, building material, medicine, charcoal, and firewood. In the KRI, Q. aegilops has been degrading due to anthropogenic threats (e.g., shifting cultivation, land use/land cover changes, civil war, and inadequate forest management policy) and these threats could increase as climate changes. In the KRI and Iraq as a whole, information on current and potential future geographical distributions of Q. aegilops is minimal or not existent. The objectives of this study were to (i) predict the current and future habitat suitability distributions of the species in relation to environmental variables and future climate change scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 2.6 2070 and RCP8.5 2070); and (ii) determine the most important environmental variables controlling the distribution of the species in the KRI. The objectives were achieved by using the MaxEnt (maximum entropy) algorithm, available records of Q. aegilops, and environmental variables. Results The model demonstrated that, under the RCP2.6 2070 and RCP8.5 2070 climate change scenarios, the distribution ranges of Q. aegilops would be reduced by 3.6% (1849.7 km2) and 3.16% (1627.1 km2), respectively. By contrast, the species ranges would expand by 1.5% (777.0 km2) and 1.7% (848.0 km2), respectively. The distribution of the species was mainly controlled by annual precipitation. Under future climate change scenarios, the centroid of the distribution would shift toward higher altitudes. Conclusions The results suggest (i) a significant suitable habitat range of the species will be lost in the KRI due to climate change by 2070 and (ii) the preference of the species for cooler areas (high altitude) with high annual precipitation. Conservation actions should focus on the mountainous areas (e.g., by establishment of national parks and protected areas) of the KRI as climate changes. These findings provide useful benchmarking guidance for the future investigation of the ecology of the oak forest, and the categorical current and potential habitat suitability maps can effectively be used to improve biodiversity conservation plans and management actions in the KRI and Iraq as a whole.


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