Impacts of climate change on Capparis spinosa L. based on ecological niche modeling

Abstract

Recent changes in climate are transforming the situation of life on Earth, including impacting the conservation status of many plant and animal species. This study aims to evaluate potential impacts of climate change on a medicinal plant that is known to be heat-tolerant, Capparis spinosa L. We used ecological niche modeling to estimate current and future potential distributions for the species, considering two emissions scenarios and five climate models for two time periods (2050 and 2070). The results in terms of areal coverage at different suitability levels in the future were closely similar to its present-day distribution; indeed, only minor differences existed in highly suitable area, with increases of only 0.2–0.3% in suitable area for 2050 and 2070 under representative concentration pathway 4.5. Given that climate-mediated range shifts in the species are expected to be minor, conservation attention to this species can focus on minimizing local effects of anthropogenic activity.

Ecological assessment and environmental niche modelling of Himalayan rhubarb (Rheum webbianum Royle) in northwest Himalaya

“…The rapid rate and magnitude of climate change is one of the dominant factor that leads to the range shift and reduction in the suitable areas for the species which show smaller populations and specific habitat locales [10][11][12][13]. Climate change effects are experienced by all types of ecosystems and species, but the Himalayan ecosystems are highly vulnerable to natural hazards, that lead to raising concerns about climate change impacts on the biodiversity of these regions [14][15][16]. According to different modelbased estimates of climate change impacts on plant diversity, mountain ecosystems are among the most susceptible of all terrestrial ecosystems [17][18][19].…”

Modeling potential distribution of newly recorded ant, Brachyponera nigrita using Maxent under climate change in Pothwar region, Pakistan

“…Raw outputs were imported to ArcGIS software along with calibration points. Then with extract values to point’s function of ArcGIS, we decided threshold values; the highest thresholds corresponding to 0%, 5%, and 10% omission error rates as used by Ashraf et al [ 50 ]. Change in high, moderate, and low suitability areas was calculated with same criteria for current and all future scenarios.…”

Extinction threat to neglected Plinia edulis exacerbated by climate change, yet likely mitigated by conservation through sustainable use

“…Climate change is one of the most important drivers affecting species distribution, causing biodiversity loss throughout the 21st century (Warren et al 2013;Boria et al 2014;Peterson et al 2015;Ashraf et al 2018;Guo et al 2019;Huang et al 2019). The strong dependence of the distribution of species on climate explains the changes in the patterns of species distributions observed in the past years (Inoue & Berg 2017;Ashraf et al 2017).…”