Endemic Juniperus Montane Species Facing Extinction Risk under Climate Change in Southwest China: Integrative Approach for Conservation Assessment and Prioritization
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Botany and Microbiology Department, Faculty of Science, Helwan University, Cairo 11790, Egypt
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CAS Key Laboratory of Mountain Ecological Restoration and Bioresource Utilization & Ecological Restoration Biodiversity Conservation Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu 610041, China
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University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100039, China
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Department of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science, Alexandria University, Alexandria 21511, Egypt
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Department of Biology, College of Science, Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh P. O. Box 84428, Saudi Arabia
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Department of Applied Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Sharjah, Sharjah P. O. Box 27272, UAE
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Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, Mansoura University, Mansoura 35516, Egypt
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Biology 2021, 10(1), 63; https://doi.org/10.3390/biology10010063
Received: 12 December 2020
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Revised: 12 January 2021
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Accepted: 15 January 2021
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Published: 17 January 2021
(This article belongs to the Section Climate Change Biology)
Simple Summary
Climate change is one of the most significant drivers of habitat loss and species extinction, particularly montane endemic species such as Juniper trees, which are restricted to unique habitats. Therefore, assessing the impact of climate change on the extinction risk of species is a promising tool or guide for species conservation planning. The loss in species habitat due to global warming indicates the level of extinction or endangerment. Predictions of suitable habitats are outputs from assessment analysis. This will help conservationists discover new populations of endemic species and help raise the awareness of local people to save and rescue these endangered species.
Climate change is an important driver of biodiversity loss and extinction of endemic montane species. In China, three endemic Juniperus spp. (Juniperuspingii var. pingii, J.tibetica, and J.komarovii) are threatened and subjected to the risk of extinction. This study aimed to predict the potential distribution of these three Juniperus species under climate change and dispersal scenarios, to identify critical drivers explaining their potential distributions, to assess the extinction risk by estimating the loss percentage in their area of occupancy (AOO), and to identify priority areas for their conservation in China. We used ensemble modeling to evaluate the impact of climate change and project AOO. Our results revealed that the projected AOOs followed a similar trend in the three Juniperus species, which predicted an entire loss of their suitable habitats under both climate and dispersal scenarios. Temperature annual range and isothermality were the most critical key variables explaining the potential distribution of these three Juniperus species; they contribute by 16–56.1% and 20.4–38.3%, respectively. Accounting for the use of different thresholds provides a balanced approach for species distribution models’ applications in conservation assessment when the goal is to assess potential climatic suitability in new geographical areas. Therefore, south Sichuan and north Yunnan could be considered important priority conservation areas for in situ conservation and search for unknown populations of these three Juniperus species.
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Keywords:
ensemble modelling; AOO; IUCN red list; alpine endemic species; global warming; biodiversity hotspots
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MDPI and ACS Style
Dakhil, M.A.; Halmy, M.W.A.; Hassan, W.A.; El-Keblawy, A.; Pan, K.; Abdelaal, M. Endemic Juniperus Montane Species Facing Extinction Risk under Climate Change in Southwest China: Integrative Approach for Conservation Assessment and Prioritization. Biology 2021, 10, 63. https://doi.org/10.3390/biology10010063
AMA Style
Dakhil MA, Halmy MWA, Hassan WA, El-Keblawy A, Pan K, Abdelaal M. Endemic Juniperus Montane Species Facing Extinction Risk under Climate Change in Southwest China: Integrative Approach for Conservation Assessment and Prioritization. Biology. 2021; 10(1):63. https://doi.org/10.3390/biology10010063
Chicago/Turabian StyleDakhil, Mohammed A., Marwa W.A. Halmy, Walaa A. Hassan, Ali El-Keblawy, Kaiwen Pan, and Mohamed Abdelaal. 2021. "Endemic Juniperus Montane Species Facing Extinction Risk under Climate Change in Southwest China: Integrative Approach for Conservation Assessment and Prioritization" Biology 10, no. 1: 63. https://doi.org/10.3390/biology10010063
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