Predicting the potential distribution of Campsis grandiflora in China under climate change

Because the research on the geographical distribution of species significantly influences people’s understanding of species protection and utilization, it is important to study the influence of climate change on plants’ geographical distribution patterns. Based on 166 distribution records and 11 climate and terrain variables, we used MaxEnt (Maximum Entropy) model and ArcGIS software to predict the potential distribution of Campsis grandiflora under climate change and then determined the dominant climate variables that significantly affected its geographical distribution. In our study, the area under the curve (AUC) value of the training data was 0.939, proving the accuracy of our prediction. Under current climate conditions, the area of potentially suitable habitat is 238.29 × 10 4 km 2 , mainly distributed in northern, central, southern, and eastern China. The dominant variables that affect the geographical distribution of C. grandiflora are temperature, precipitation and altitude. In the future climate change scenario, the total area of suitable habitat and highly suitable habitat will increase, whereas the area of moderately suitable habitat and poorly suitable habitat will decrease. In addition, the centroid of the potentially suitable area of C. grandiflora will migrate to higher latitude and higher altitudes areas. The results could give strategic guidance for development, protection, and utilization of C. grandiflora in China.