Potential Effects of Climate Change on the Distribution of Cold-Tolerant Evergreen Broadleaved Woody Plants in the Korean Peninsula

Abstract

Climate change has caused shifts in species’ ranges and extinctions of high-latitude and altitude species. Most cold-tolerant evergreen broadleaved woody plants (shortened to cold-evergreens below) are rare species occurring in a few sites in the alpine and subalpine zones in the Korean Peninsula. The aim of this research is to 1) identify climate factors controlling the range of cold-evergreens in the Korean Peninsula; and 2) predict the climate change effects on the range of cold-evergreens. We used multimodel inference based on combinations of climate variables to develop distribution models of cold-evergreens at a physiognomic-level. Presence/absence data of 12 species at 204 sites and 6 climatic factors, selected from among 23 candidate variables, were used for modeling. Model uncertainty was estimated by mapping a total variance calculated by adding the weighted average of within-model variation to the between-model variation. The range of cold-evergreens and model performance were validated by true skill statistics, the receiver operating characteristic curve and the kappa statistic. Climate change effects on the cold-evergreens were predicted according to the RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios. Multimodel inference approach excellently projected the spatial distribution of cold-evergreens (AUC = 0.95, kappa = 0.62 and TSS = 0.77). Temperature was a dominant factor in model-average estimates, while precipitation was minor. The climatic suitability increased from the southwest, lowland areas, to the northeast, high mountains. The range of cold-evergreens declined under climate change. Mountain-tops in the south and most of the area in the north remained suitable in 2050 and 2070 under the RCP 4.5 projection and 2050 under the RCP 8.5 projection. Only high-elevations in the northeastern Peninsula remained suitable under the RCP 8.5 projection. A northward and upper-elevational range shift indicates change in species composition at the alpine and subalpine ecosystems in the Korean Peninsula.

Effects of Climate Change on the Climatic Niches of Warm-Adapted Evergreen Plants: Expansion or Contraction?

“…However, we are aware that our model predictions in the future have several limitations due to the lack of: (1) ecological and evolutionary research on the study species; and (2) information on other environmental changes related to climate change, such as sea-level rise, and land-use change. Due to the dynamic responses of plants to a changing climate, such simple correlations may not account for the future distribution of climatically suitable habitats for plants [49,85]. Much evolutionary research has addressed the issue of how modern populations of plants have adapted to current local climatic conditions, which confined the responses of plants to climate change in their local habitats [86][87][88][89][90][91][92].…”

“…Bioclimatic variables showed strong inter-correlations [49]. Therefore, we tested correlations on pairs of bioclimatic variables using Pearson's r and selected five variables out of six variables showing weak correlations among them (r < 0.7): BIO1, BIO2, BIO12, BIO13, and BIO14 (Table 1b, Table A1, see Koo et al (2015) for further details on the variable selection) [49].…”

“…Therefore, we tested correlations on pairs of bioclimatic variables using Pearson's r and selected five variables out of six variables showing weak correlations among them (r < 0.7): BIO1, BIO2, BIO12, BIO13, and BIO14 (Table 1b, Table A1, see Koo et al (2015) for further details on the variable selection) [49]. Although BIO3, Isothermality (BIO2/Temperature Annual Range) (* 100), showed weak correlations with the selected variables, we did not use it, because when we tested its spatial variation from the south to the north, it did not reflect an important climatic characteristic of the KP, a clear climatic variation from the south (warm-temperate, maritime climate) to the north (cold-temperate, continental climate).…”

Temperature-Dominated Driving Mechanisms of the Plant Diversity in Temperate Forests, Northeast China

“…Strong positive relationships between climate and plant richness are mainly impacted by temperature variations as well as latitude effects [23,25,26]. Other studies have suggested that cold temperatures may possibly be responsible for maintenance of the high species richness observed in some areas [27,28]; e.g., a greater plant diversity has been observed at cooler sites compared to warmer sites in near region [29][30][31]. This indicates that other factors impact the latitude effect at the regional scale.…”

Potential impact of climate change on plant invasion in the Republic of Korea

“…Ecological niche modeling is an empirical tool for simulating the spatial distributions of species, assessing the potential responses of organisms to climate change and resolving species niches based on environmental variables (Guillera-Arroita et al 2015). Among the various ecological niche models (ENMs), the maximum entropy (MaxEnt) model is a widely used machine-learning technique that has high predictive accuracy while using a small set of data on species presence and environmental variables (Phillips et al 2006;Koo et al 2015;Dullinger et al 2017;Lamsal et al 2018;Thapa et al 2018;Shrestha and Shrestha 2019).…”