The current and future potential geographical distribution of Hyparrhenia hirta

Abstract

Chejara VK, Kriticos DJ, Kristiansen P, Sindel BM, Whalley RDB & Nadolny C (2010). The current and future potential geographical distribution of Hyparrhenia hirta. Weed Research50, 174–184. Summary Hyparrhenia hirta is a pasture grass that has become highly invasive in several parts of the world, including Australia where it has become a serious environmental weed in recent decades. Knowledge of the likely potential distribution and relative abundance of this invasive species, under current and future climate scenarios, will help biosecurity and weed control authorities to plan better strategies to manage the invasion. The CLIMEX modelling package was used to investigate the impacts of climate change on the potential global distribution of H. hirta, based on eco‐physiological data. The worldwide potential distribution of H. hirta under current climatic conditions is vast and far greater than the current distribution, with suitable climate conditions extending over much of the tropics and subtropics. Under future climate scenarios, the range of H. hirta is likely to expand into areas currently too cold for its survival and contract from areas that are projected to become hotter and drier under climate change. The effects of likely climatic scenarios on the global potential distribution of H. hirta are sufficiently great that they should be considered routinely in strategic control plans for biotic invasions. Changes in the potential range of an invasive species such as H. hirta, under global warming scenarios, will mean that it could invade new jurisdictions. Knowledge of this emerging threat could help to formulate effective prevention, surveillance and response measures in these presently marginally unsuitable regions.

Areas of China predicted to have a suitable climate for Anoplophora chinensis under a climate‐warming scenario

“…In practice, an EI>20 indicates that the location has a highly suitable climate for a species (Sutherst, 2003). According to the definition provided by Chejara et al (2010), we classified EI values as follows: areas with unsuitable climate for A. chinensis: 0≤EI<0.49; areas with low suitability: 0.5≤EI<9.99; areas with moderate suitability: 10≤EI<19.99; and areas with high suitability: EI≥20.…”

“…Growth indices relating to seasonal activity patterns and relative abundance play a major role in defining the relative climate suitability of species within a geographical range. Stress indices relating to factors that limit geographical distributions play a major role in defining the range boundaries of species (Chejara et al, 2010). CLIMEX combines the growth and stress indices into an ecoclimatic index (EI), which describes the climatic suitability of a location for a species.…”

“…These bioclimatic models include ANUCLIM/BIOCLIM, CLIMATE, CLIMEX, DOMAIN, GARP, HABITAT, and MaxEnt (Chejara et al, 2010). The CLIMEX model has been widely used in research on pest control under global climate change.…”

Ecology and Management of Weeds in a Changing Climate

“…As with North America and Europe, such distributional changes (southward) have been documented for a number of weed species (Table 2.5) [22,28,29,83,84].…”

Impacts of climate change on invasive Lantana camara L. distribution in South Africa

“…One major assumption that underlies such models is that climate is the primary factor defining the potential range of plants and other poikilotherms (Woodward, 1987). A range of software is now available which can be used to model species' current and future distributions (Kriticos and Randall, 2001;Hirzel and LeLay, 2008) one of which, CLIMEX, has been widely used to assess invasion risks from invasive alien species (Kriticos et al, 2011a;Chejara et al, 2010;Kriticos and Leriche, 2010;Taylor et al, 2012a, b). It is a mechanistic model (Hijmans and Graham, 2006) which is well suited for applications that involve transferability or projections of species distribution into novel environments (Randin et al, 2006), such as investigating the impacts of climate change on species' potential ranges (Kriticos et al, 2011a).…”