Modeling Climate Change Effects on the Distribution of Oak Forests with Machine Learning

Abstract

The present study models the effect of climate change on the distribution of Persian oak (Quercus brantii Lindl.) in the Zagros forests, located in the west of Iran. The modeling is conducted under the current and future climatic conditions by fitting the machine learning method of the Bayesian additive regression tree (BART). For the anticipation of the potential habitats for the Persian oak, two general circulation models (GCMs) of CCSM4 and HADGEM2-ES under the representative concentration pathways (RCPs) of 2.6 and 8.5 for 2050 and 2070 are used. The mean temperature (MT) of the wettest quarter (bio8), solar radiation, slope and precipitation of the wettest month (bio13) are respectively reported as the most important variables in the modeling. The results indicate that the suitable habitat of Persian oak will significantly decrease in the future under both climate change scenarios as much as 75.06% by 2070. The proposed study brings insight into the current condition and further projects the future conditions of the local forests for proper management and protection of endangered ecosystems.

Environmental and socio-economic impacts of the changes in distribution areas of Pinus pinea L. (stone pine) due to climate change in Türkiye

“…Another study by Mirhashemi et al (2023) for oak forests also predicted severe reductions in oak distributions due to climate change in the future (Mirhashemi et al, 2023). Similar ndings are also available for Kermes oak (Babalik et al, 2021).…”

Efecto del cambio climático en la distribución de las especies de clima templado en Oaxaca, México

“…Estas condiciones incrementarán ante un escenario pesimista, en el cual todas las especies muestran reducción de su superficie, así como cambios en sus patrones de distribución espacial. Otros estudios han mostrado que los procesos de migración de las especies de climas templados están dirigidas a porciones del territorio con mayor altitud, siendo estas zonas donde actualmente hay una mayor precipitación y temperaturas más bajas (Safaei et al 2021, Mirhashemi et al 2023. De esta manera, las especies buscan compensar el aumento de la temperatura y reducción de la precipitación (Mendoza-Ponce et al 2020).…”

Taxonomy and pathogenicity of fungi associated with oak decline in northern and central Zagros forests of Iran with emphasis on coelomycetous species

“…Oaks (Quercus L.) are the dominant vegetation of Zagros forests in western Iran with significant economic and environmental values (Heydari et al, 2013;Shiravand and Hosseini, 2020). Over the last two decades, oak decline as a serious ecological damage is spreading in this part of the world, which is caused by various biotic and abiotic factors affected by climate change, drought, wildfire, air pollution, irresponsible exploitation, and mismanagement (Ahmadi et al, 2014;Hosseini et al, 2018;Ahmadi et al, 2019;Shiravand and Hosseini, 2020;Mirhashemi et al, 2023). Fungi are well-known biotic agents, which affect trees under stress and cause canker, gummosis, vascular tissues necrosis, dieback, wilting, and partial and total death symptoms (Mirabolfathy et al, 2013;Ghasemi-Esfahlan et al, 2016Safaee et al, 2017;Alidadi et al, 2019;Hanifeh et al, 2019;Moradi-Amirabad et al, 2019;Sabernasab et al, 2019;Di Lecce et al, 2020;Bashiri et al, 2020aBashiri et al, , b, 2022.…”