Distribution and in situ conservation of a relic oil woody species yellowhorn (Xanthoceras sorbifolium Bunge) base on China’s National Nature Reserves

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1 School of Nature Conservation, Beijing Forestry University (北京林业大学), Beijing, China
2 Key Laboratory of plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Kunming, China
3 Protected Agricultural Technology Development Center, Shanxi Datong University, Datong, China
4 Qinghai Forestry Department, Xining, China
5 Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.2965v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Climate Change Biology, Conservation Biology, Ecology, Natural Resource Management, Plant Science
Keywords
climate change, Bioenergy, China’s National Nature Reserves, species distribution model, Utilization-conservation tradeoff, GAP analysis
Copyright
© 2017 Wang et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Wang Q, Yang L, Ranjitkar S, Wang J, Wang X, Zhang D, Wang Z, Huang Y, Zhou Y, Deng Z, Yi L, Luan X, El-Kassaby YA, Guan W. 2017. Distribution and in situ conservation of a relic oil woody species yellowhorn (Xanthoceras sorbifolium Bunge) base on China’s National Nature Reserves. PeerJ Preprints 5:e2965v1

Abstract

Conservation and protected areas have been recognized as the last shelter for wild animal and plant species. To understand the Chinese wild Xanthoceras sorbifolium contemporary and future (next 30-50 years) distribution under the anticipated climate change and to improve the species’ in situ conservation strategy within China’s National Nature Reserves network, we used BiodiversityR to predict the species’ distribution utilizing the method’s “always-suitable” map concept. Then, we delineated the “always-suitable” distribution areas with the existing China’s National Nature Reserves to identify potential conservation areas after considering the role of human influence (i.e., utilization) and the anticipated changes of climate change. Seven bioclimatic variables predictors and 12 Environmental Niche Modelling sub-models successfully contributed to the final model assembly (AUC = 0.916, kappa = 0.398). The species range delineation indicated that 71 of the 427 National Nature Reserves were included in the “always-suitable” area, accounting for 26,007 km2 (1.58% of the species total distribution). This mapping endeavour highlighted the anticipated negative impact of climate change with 15-20% habitat decline and expected species’ distribution centers shift from the country’s northwest to the southeast. Since woody plants with bio-energy potential have increased economic values for their environment-friendly predisposition, our results predicts X. sorbifolium continuous deterioration. The adoption of flexible management strategy embracing acceptable tradeoff between conservation and development/utilization within China’s National Nature Reserves could effectively alleviate the expected species decline.

Author Comment

This is a submission to PeerJ for review.

Supplemental Information

Table S1

Occurrence data of X. sorbifolium from different resources

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.2965v1/supp-1

Table S2

Generalized Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) used for final calibration and prediction of climatic space

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.2965v1/supp-2

Table S3

Generalized Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) used for final calibration and prediction of climatic space

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.2965v1/supp-3