The impact of climate change on potential distribution of species in semi-arid region: A case study of Qinghai spruce (Picea crassifolia) in Qilian Mountain, Gansu province, China

To restore the human-disturbed natural ecosystem and to assess the impact of the projected future climatic change on the natural ecosystem at a plant community level or at a plant species level, the potential distribution of the community and the species under current climate conditions need to be understood. Therefore many methods have recently been developed to simulate the potential distribution of a particular community or species. However, very little has been done to assess the potential distribution of Qinghai spruce (Picea crassifolia) in Qilian Mountains where the spruce forest is extremely important ecologically and hydrologically. This study used Maximum Entropy model to simulate the potential distribution of Qinghai spruce under current climatic conditions. The validity of the model was verified by comparing the simulated potential distribution with the observed distribution of the spruce. The result shows the model is feasible to simulate the potential distribution of Qinghai spruce. Then this model was used to assess the impact of the projected climatic changes on the distribution of the spruce. The distribution of the spruce under current climate condition was compared with that under the projected climatic change scenario. The areal extent of the potential distribution may increase by 1% under the projected climatic change scenario. In addition, this study revealed that Mean Maximum Temperature of Warmest Month and Mean Temperature of Wettest Quarter are the most important factors which controlling the potential distribution of Qinghai spruce among the 19 environmental and climatic factors used in this model.