Title: The strategy for protecting threatened forest species richness in the northeastern China from the effects of climate change

Authors: Ji-Zhong Wan; Chun-Jing Wang; Shi-Jie Han; Li-Hua Wang; Jing-Hua Yu

Addresses: State Key Laboratory of Plateau Ecology and Agriculture, Qinghai University, Xining 810016, China ' State Key Laboratory of Plateau Ecology and Agriculture, Qinghai University, Xining 810016, China ' Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China ' Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China ' Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China

Abstract: Climate change has the potential to severely threaten the plant species in the forests of northeastern China. The field surveys performed for this study spanned 4 years and identified the endangered species present in the forests of northeastern China. We conducted a detailed investigation of 2,884 study plots and selected 29 nationally protected plant species (sample sizes ≥ 5), namely, threatened species for further analysis. We modelled and mapped the potential distributions of these 29 threatened species, and found that threatened species richness hotspots are currently distributed in the eastern and northeastern areas of the studied region and will move geographically. This study focused on the strategy for protecting threatened forest species richness by analysing the change trend of species richness and planning of priority protection areas due to climate change.

Keywords: species richness; climate change; Maxent; Zonation; nature reserve; forest plants.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEP.2019.103744

International Journal of Environment and Pollution, 2019 Vol.65 No.4, pp.293 - 310

Accepted: 08 Apr 2019
Published online: 26 Nov 2019 *

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