Predicting Impacts of Climate Change on Northward Range Expansion of Invasive Weeds in South Korea

Abstract

Predicting the distribution of invasive weeds under climate change is important for the early identification of areas that are susceptible to invasion and for the adoption of the best preventive measures. Here, we predicted the habitat suitability of 16 invasive weeds in response to climate change and land cover changes in South Korea using a maximum entropy modeling approach. Based on the predictions of the model, climate change is likely to increase habitat suitability. Currently, the area of moderately suitable and highly suitable habitats is estimated to be 8877.46 km2, and 990.29 km2, respectively, and these areas are expected to increase up to 496.52% by 2050 and 1439.65% by 2070 under the representative concentration pathways 4.5 scenario across the country. Although habitat suitability was estimated to be highest in the southern regions (<36° latitude), the central and northern regions are also predicted to have substantial increases in suitable habitat areas. Our study revealed that climate change would exacerbate the threat of northward weed invasions by shifting the climatic barriers of invasive weeds from the southern region. Thus, it is essential to initiate control and management strategies in the southern region to prevent further invasions into new areas.

Assessment of the Spatial Invasion Risk of Intentionally Introduced Alien Plant Species (IIAPS) under Environmental Change in South Korea

“…rugosum are estimated to have relatively high spatial coverage, up to 80.85% and 77.10% of the total land area of South Korea in 2050 and 2070, respectively (under RCP 4.5). These predictions are comparable to the results from earlier studies performed in South Korea [ 49 , 55 , 80 ]. Similarly, we estimated the risk of invasion by the IIAPS and found that 12% of the country is currently at high risk of invasion and that this area is likely to increase dramatically by 2050 (to 39%) and 2070 (to 50%), under RCP 4.5.…”

“…Currently, the spatial distribution of these species is concentrated close to the coastal areas in the western and southern regions: we predict that the distributions will expand toward the central and northern regions by 2050 and 2070, related to the transportation corridors to these regions. Thus, land cover changes and climatic variables may play pivotal roles in the spatial distribution of IIAPS, as suggested by the modeling system used in this study and by previous research [ 49 , 55 ].…”

“…tuberosus ; Table 1 ) [ 27 ]. These species can become well adapted, cultivated, and naturalized in local and systemic areas [ 13 , 20 , 55 , 72 ]. Some now exist as ruderal species colonizing disturbed land, such as roads, shorelines, mining sites, and recreational parks [ 27 , 29 ].…”

“…Similarly, risk assessment of the invasive weed Leucanthemum vulgare under future climate change showed it would be distributed in all continents, with the Oceania region being at particularly high risk [ 21 ]. Adhikari et al [ 49 ] and Hong et al [ 55 ] estimated rapid range expansion of invasive species in South Korea under future climate change. These studies demonstrate that future climate change will be a major factor in the proliferation of non-native plants across the world, consistent with our findings.…”

“…To eliminate autocorrelation (r 2 > 0.75, p = 0.05) among the environmental variables, we used Spearman’s correlation on pairs with the Proc Corr function of SAS 9.4 (SAS Institute, Inc., Cary, NC, USA). We picked nine important variables with low correlation and high predictive performance, as in Shin et al [ 50 ] and Hong et al [ 55 ] ( Table S1 ).…”