Biodiv Sci ›› 2020, Vol. 28 ›› Issue (7): 769-778.  DOI: 10.17520/biods.2019367

Special Issue: 传粉生物学

• Original Papers: Plant Diversity •     Next Articles

Influence of the climate change on suitable areas of Calanthe sieboldii and its pollinators in China

Yuanjun Yu1,2, Huolin Luo1, Nannan Liu1, Dongjin Xiong1, Yibo Luo2, Boyun Yang1,*()   

  1. 1 Key Laboratory of Plant Resources in Jiangxi Province, School of Life Sciences, Nanchang University, Nanchang 330031
    2 State Key Laboratory of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093
  • Received:2019-11-20 Accepted:2020-03-23 Online:2020-07-20 Published:2020-09-29
  • Contact: Boyun Yang

Abstract:

Calanthe sieboldii is an orchid species with a narrow range of suitable habitats that are typically disjunction between continents and islands. Calanthe sieboldii relies on specific pollinators such as Xylocopa carpenter bees, including X. appendiculata, X. rufipes and X. chinensis. This study built a species distribution model (SDM) using the Biomod2 package of R to predict the distribution patterns of C. sieboldii and Xylocopa spp. in China under three different representative concentration pathways in 2050 and 2070. The results show the distribution of C. sieboldii is better explained by precipitation-related variables than temperature-related variables, 25.4% and 13.9%, respectively. The current suitable habitats for C. sieboldii are mainly in Central China and East China. However, future climate change scenarios may shift these habitats, which will shift to higher altitude area, and may change -59.0% to 34.7% dominated by future climate change scenarios. The range of suitable areas for Xylocopa spp. will decrease by 16.4%-19.7%, moving to Northwest and Northeast China. Consequently, as the co-distribution areas between plant and pollinators account for suitable areas C. sieboldii, the orchid’s distribution will decrease by 0.5%-11.4% from 90.0%, indicating that the distribution of C. sieboldii will suffer from future climate change and declining pollinators. Therefore, the pollinator should be considered carefully in the conservation of C. sieboldii or similar specialized-pollination orchid species.

Key words: Calanthe sieboldii, Xylocopa, climate change, species distribution model, pollination