Potential geographic distribution of relict plant Pteroceltis tatarinowii in China under climate change scenarios.

Pteroceltis tatarinowii (Pteroceltis: Ulmaceae) is a deciduous tree that has a cultivation history of more than 2000 years in China. As an excellent afforestation tree species and rare and endangered tertiary relic plant, P. tatarinowii has high ecological protection value. Due to the forest destruction caused by predatory logging and natural environmental factors, the population of P. tatarinowii in China has decreased significantly. In this study, the potential geographical distribution of P. tatarinowii in China under climate change was predicted using MaxEnt model and ArcGIS based on 223 effective distribution points of P. tatarinowii and 11 environmental variables. The results showed that: (1) the prediction accuracy of MaxEnt model was extremely high, and the areas under curve (AUC) value of the training data was 0.936; The area of the potential suitable habitat area of P. tatarinowii under current climate condition was 180.84×104 km2, and mainly located in the central and southeast regions of China. (2) The domain environmental variables affecting the potential geographical distribution of P. tatarinowii were min temperature of coldest month (12.1~22.7°C), isothermality (26.6~35.8), mean diurnal range 6.9~9.3°C and precipitation of wettest month (189.5 ~955.5 mm). (3) In 2050s and 2070s, compared with current (4.19×104 km2), the area of highly suitable habitat will increase by 0.2%-0.3% (RCP2.6) and 1.22%-3.84% (RCP8.5) respectively. while the poorly, moderately and total suitable habitats will decrease. The gravity center of P. tatarinowii showed a trend of migration to higher latitudes and northern regions in the future. These results will provide theoretical basis for cultivation management and resource protection of P. tatarinowii.

1 Introduction

Among the top ten global environmental problems, climate change has been listed as the primary problem and has attracted more and more attention [1-3]. Responses and feedbacks generated by terrestrial ecosystems have become one of the key research space and focal issues under global climate change [4-6]. Back in the early 1900s, Grinnell pointed out that climate plays an important role in determining the distribution of species. Plants, which serves as an important indicator, will not only be affected by climate change, but also affect the climate through negative feedback [6, 7]. A research team has already found that global warming could cause plants to migrate to higher altitudes and latitudes [8]. Climate change will change the distribution of species and intensifies habitat fragmentation [9]. The reduction of population and genetic diversity will lead to plant migration, endangered or even extinction, especially those species with narrow niche [10, 11]. The fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2014) pointed out that the current global average temperature has increased by 1°C versus that before the industrial revolution, the global average temperature in 2016–2035 may increase by 0.3–0.7°Cversus that in 1986–2005 [12]. Studies have shown that concentration increase of greenhouse gas emissions may result in a sustained increase [13]. Changes in the spatial and temporal pattern of climate may lead to changes in the geographical distribution of rare and endangered species, thus threatening their original habitats [14, 15]. Therefore, a systematic verification of the geographical distribution pattern of rare and endangered species under climate change scenarios can effectively protect the habitat of rare and endangered species as well as the authenticity of ecological system [16].

Species distribution models (SDMs) have been widely adopted to study the impacts of individual ecology and climate change on the potential geographic distribution of species [17, 18]. Such models are also increasingly playing an important role in inferring the potential geographic distribution of species by using changes of environmental variables, and they have been widely used to simulate the potential geographic distribution of rare and endangered species in recent years [19]. At present, commonly used SDMs include BIOCLIM, CLIMEX, DOMAIN, GARP and MaxEnt among others [20, 21]. MaxEnt can find out the maximum entropy of species distribution probability through known species distribution data and environmental factors, emphasize the impact of human interference factors, abiotic environmental factors and biological factors on species distribution in the simulation process, and has the advantages of requiring only ‘no-absence points’, stable prediction results, regular program, reducing the probability of over fitting, etc [22, 23]. MaxEnt’s prediction results are more delicate and more suitable for the prediction of endangered protected plants with limited distribution data and narrow niche [24, 25], such as Zelkova schneideriana [26], Prunus africana [27], Helianthemum songaricum [28] and Alsophila spinulos [29].

Pteroceltis tatarinowii Maxim. (Pteroceltis: Ulmaceae) is a deciduous tree that has a cultivation history of more than 2000 years in China [30, 31]. As an excellent afforestation tree species and rare and endangered tertiary relic plant, P. tatarinowii has high ecological protection value [31, 32]. Besides, it is a unique monotypic plant with important scientific research value to study the systematic evolution of Ulmaceae. In view of the high ecological, economic and social benefits of P. tatarinowii, the protection of its germplasm and genetic resources has important theoretical and practical application value [32]. In recent years, due to the forest destruction caused by predatory logging and natural environmental factors, the populations of P. tatarinowii in China has decreased significantly, scattered in Northern Jiangsu, Shandong, North China and the southern end of Liaodong Peninsula. At present, studies on P. tatarinowii mainly focus on morphological development [33], systematic classification [34] and genetic diversity [35]. Research on species distribution pattern and potential suitable habitat of P. tatarinowii still remains vacant.

Based on the distribution data of P. tatarinowii and climatic variables, the spatial analysis technology of MaxEnt model and ArcGIS software were used to simulate the potential geographical distribution of P. tatarinowii under current climatic condition, the relationship between P. tatarinowii and variables was analyzed, the potential geographical distribution under future climate change scenarios were predicted, the changes and heterogeneity of P. tatarinowii in different regions of China in the future were clarified (Fig 1).

Fig 1

Flowchart displaying the steps of the present study.

2 Materials and methods

2.1 Study area

China is located in the east of Asia and the West Bank of the Pacific Ocean, with vast territory and complex and diverse terrain. Complex and diverse climate, significant monsoon climate and strong continental climate are typical characteristics of China’s climate. From the perspective of climate types, the eastern part of China belongs to subtropical monsoon climate, temperate monsoon climate and tropical monsoon climate, the northwest belongs to temperate continental climate, and the Qinghai Tibet Plateau belongs to alpine climate [36]. Second, as China has the most significant monsoon climate in the world, most parts of China have the same period of rain and heat, that is, cold and dry winter, warm, hot and rainy summer. With this complex and diverse climate, most crops, animals and plants in the world have suitable places to grow in China [37]. However, the complexity of climate leads to frequent occurrence of disastrous weather in China, such as drought, flood, cold wave and typhoon, which will have an adverse impact on the reproduction, development and distribution of animals and plants [38, 39].

2.2 Source of distribution records of P. tatarinowii

In this research, the occurrences of P. tatarinowii were obtained by visiting the National Plant Specific Resource Center (NPSRC, http://www.cvh.ac.cn/), the National Plant Specific Resource Center (NPSRC, Http://www.cvh.ac.cn/). The above data come from different herbarium or institutions, so there may be partial overlap in location. On the other hand, due to the different collection personnel and collection time, the accessibility of species distribution areas and human research bias, the species distribution data will be too dense in some areas. In order to eliminate the influence of this part of data on the prediction results to a certain extent, the data were screened according to the previous research methods [40-42]. Firstly, the points with overlapping positions, fuzzy location description and no clear latitude and longitude marks were removed. Second, in order to avoid over fitting, a buffer zone with each distribution point as the center and a radius of 5 km was established by using ArcGIS, and only one distribution point was reserved within 5 km [25, 27]. Finally, 223 distribution points of P. tatarinowii were collected (Fig 2, S1 Data).

Fig 2

The distribution records of P. tatarinowi i.

Larger circles indicating higher numbers of this plant, smaller circles indicating less numbers. The boundary was obtained from the Ministry of Natural Resources of the People’s Republic of China (http://bzdt.ch.mnr.gov.cn/index.html), Map review number: GS(2016)2923.

2.3 Environmental variables and related data

19 bioclimtic variables with a coordinate system of WGS84 were obtained by accessing the WorldClim Database (http://www.worldclim.org//). WorldClim is a database of high spatial resolution global weather and climate data. These data can be used for mapping and spatial modeling [22, 24, 28, 29]. The database collects detailed meteorological information recorded by meteorological stations around the world from 1970 to 2000. The altitude, slope and aspect data were downloaded from the geospatial Data Cloud (https://www.gscloud.cn/).

BCC-CSM2-MR (Beijing Climate Center Climate System Model) of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) was selected as the future climate model. BCC-CSM2-MR, developed by China National Climate Center, has been proved to be more suitable for China’s climate change characteristics and has been used in similar studies [43-45]. The Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs) scenarios which can describe the prediction results of future climate change more scientifically were chosen [43, 46, 47]. Since there is a certain correlation between environmental variables, correlation analysis is required before modelling [48]. First, all variables were imported into the MaxEnt and repeated 3 times, and the variables with the contribution rate of 0 were deleted (S1 Table). Secondly, all the remained variables were selected for Spearman correlation analysis (S2 Table). When the correlation coefficient of the two variables was greater than or equal to 0.8, the one with higher contribution rate was retained. Finally 11 environmental variables were retained to build the final model (Table 1).

Table 1

Environmental variables used in MaxEnt model.

Index	Descriptions
bio2	Mean diurnal range (Mean of monthly (max temp—min temp))
bio3	Isothermality (Bio2/Bio7×100)
bio4	Temperature seasonality (standard deviation×100)
bio6	Min temperature of coldest month
bio10	Mean temperature of warmest quarter
bio13	Precipitation of wettest month
bio15	Precipitation seasonality (Coefficient of Variation)
bio19	Precipitation of the coldest quarter
Altitude	Altitude
Aspect	Aspect
Slope	Slope

The 1: 16 million Chinese administrative division map was taken from the Ministry of Natural Resources of the People’s Republic of China (http://bzdt.ch.mnr.gov.cn/index.html), Map review number: GS(2016)2923. MaxEnt (V3.4.1) was downloaded from the website of American Museum of Natural History (http://biodiversityinformatics.amnh.org/open source/maxent/). The ArcGIS software version used in this research was version 10.2.

2.4 Parameters of MaxEnt model

The distribution points of P. tatarinowii and 11 environmental variables were imported into MaxEnt to establish the model. In the basic parameter setting options, ‘Random test percentage’ was set to 25 and ‘Max number of background points’ was set to 10000. In the advanced parameter setting options, ‘Maximum iterations’ was set to 500 and ‘Convergence threshold’ was set to 0.00001. Other parameters were selected as model default. For subsequent analysis, the functions of ‘Creating response curves’, ‘Make pictures of predictions’ and ‘Do jackknife to measure variable importance’ were selected in turn [23].

In this research, in order to evaluate the performance of parameter configuration, different parameter configurations were selected for trial operation so as to achieve the purpose of adjusting the optimal parameters of the model [49]. Firstly, based on the known distribution points of P. tatarinowii and its corresponding environmental variables, RM was set to 0.5~4 respectively. 6 feature combinations (FC) were used to optimize the model parameters and select the best parameter combination: L (linear feature); LQ (linear feature+quadratic feature), h (hinge feature), LQH (linear feature+quadratic feature+hinge feature+product feature) and LQHPT (linear feature+quadratic feature+hinge feature+product feature+threshold value feature). Finally, the RM in this research was set to step 1, with the feature combination to LQHPT, and the Jackknife method was selected to determine the importance of each variable.

2.5 Validation of model accuracy

The AUC was used to evaluate the prediction accuracy of the model. The closer the AUC value is to 1, the better the prediction effect of the model [23, 50]. The evaluation criteria of model simulation accuracy were divided into four grades: poor (AUC≤0.80), average (0.841].

2.6 Classification of suitable habitat grades

In the output file, the average value of 10 repeats based on the existence probability logic value (P) of species was selected as the simulation result. The range of P value is 0 ~1. The larger the P value, the greater the possibility of species existence. ArcGIS10.2 software was used to convert the ASCII file into raster format, and suitable habitats were classified and visualized. Based on the P value, the Natural Breaks method was used to divide the suitable habitat into four grades, i.e. highly suitable habitat (0.5≤P≤1.0), moderately suitable habitat (0.3≤P< 0.5), poorly suitable habitat (0.1≤P < 0.3) and unsuitable habitat (0.0≤P < 0.2). The number of grids in each suitable area was counted, and the area and proportion were calculated.

Referring to Yue et al., the gravity center of suitable habitats of P. tatarinowii under climate change scenarios were counted by using the Zonal Geometry Tool in ArcGIS, the changes of gravity center position under scenarios were calculated [51].

3 Results

3.1 Environmental variables affecting the potential geographical distribution of P. tatarinowii

Based on 223 distribution points, the potential geographical distribution of P. tatarinowii in China was simulated by using MaxEnt. The AUC values of the training data and test data were 0.936 and 0.910, respectively, indicating that the model fitting effect was good (Fig 3).

Fig 3

Receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) of P. tatarinowii.

At present, there is no unified method to determine the dominant environmental variables affecting species distribution, and the cumulative contribution rate of variables is used as the basis for selection by many researchers. The threshold of cumulative contribution rate is usually selected subjectively according to the characteristics of research species and research results, so the standard is not uniform. In this research, the dominant environmental variables were selected based on contribution rate in conjunction with Jackknife method. Among the 11 environmental variables predicted by Maxent, the precipitation of the wettest month (bio13, 37.1%), the min temperature of coldest month (bio6, 28.3%), and the isothermality (bio3, 10.9%) were the variables with the highest contribution rate, with the cumulative contribution rate of 76.3% (Fig 4). The results of Jackknife test (Fig 5) showed that the precipitation of wettest month (bio13), min temperature of coldest month (bio6) and the mean diurnal range (bio2) were the variables with the greatest impact on the regularized training gain when only a single environmental variable was applied, indicating that these variables contain unique information. To sum up, the dominant environmental variables affecting the potential geographical distribution of P. tatarinowii were precipitation of wettest month (bio13), min temperature of coldest month (bio6), isothermality (bio3) and mean diurnal range (bio2).

Fig 4

Contribution rate of environmental variables on the distribution of P. tatarinowii.

Fig 5

The Jackknife test result of environmental variables of P. tatarinowii.

The response curve of species survival probability to environmental factors in the results of MaxENT model was generally used to determine the relationship between species existence probability and environmental variables (Fig 6). Referring to the previous studies, when the existence probability of P. tatarinowii was greater than the threshold value of highly suitable habitat (0.5), the corresponding environmental variables interval was regarded as the suitable interval for P. tatarinowii to survive.

Fig 6

Response curves of existence probability of P. tatarinowii for environmental variables.

The operation results of MaxEnt model showed that when the mean diurnal range (bio2) reached 6.9°C, the survival probability of P. tatarinowii reached the threshold value of highly suitable habitat (0.5). With the increase of the mean diurnal range (bio2), the existence probability of P. tatarinowii reached the peak (0.62). Then the survival probability of P. tatarinowii decreased with the increase of the mean diurnal range (bio2). When the mean diurnal range (bio2) was 9.3°C, its survival probability was reduced to 0.5. Therefore, the suitable range of the mean diurnal range (bio2) was 6.9~9.3°C. When the isothermality (bio3) was 26.6, its survival probability reached the threshold value of highly suitable habitat (0.5). With the increase of isothermality (bio3), the survival probability of P. tatarinowii showed an upward trend. When the isothermality (bio3) was 29.0, its survival probability reached the peak (0.58). With the continuous increase of isothermality (bio3), the survival probability of P. tatarinowii began to decrease. When the isothermality (bio3) was 35.8, the survival probability decreased to 0.5. Therefore, the suitable range of the isothermality (bio3) was 26.6~35.8. The survival probability of P. tatarinowii reached the threshold value of highly suitable habitat (0.5) when the min temperature of coldest month (bio6) reached -3.7°C. With the increase of the min temperature of coldest month (bio6), the survival probability of P. tatarinowii reached the peak (0.74) at 12.1°C. Then, the survival probability of P. tatarinowii started to decrease slightly with the increase of the min temperature of coldest month (bio6). When the min temperature of coldest month (bio6) was 22.7°C, the survival probability of P. tatarinowii decreased to the lowest value. Therefore, the suitable range of min temperature of coldest month (bio6) was 12.1 ~22.7°C. When the precipitation of wettest month (bio13) reached 189.5 mm, the survival probability of P. tatarinowii reached the threshold value of highly suitable habitat (0.5). With the increase of the precipitation of wettest month (bio13), the survival probability of P. tatarinowii showed an upward trend. When precipitation of wettest month (bio13) was 955.5 mm, the survival probability reached its peak (0.83). Thus, the suitable range of the survival probability was 189.5 ~955.5 mm. The suitable range of temperature and precipitation variables affecting the survival probability of P. tatarinowii was relatively narrow, indicating that its requirements for temperature range and precipitation of was higher.

3.2 Potential geographical distribution of P. tatarinowii under current climatic condition

The potential geographical distribution of P. tatarinowii under current climate condition was simulated by using MaxEnt model (Fig 7). Among the existence probability logical values of 96 effective distribution points of P. tatarinowii, the highest logical value was Fangshan District, Beijing (0.96), and the lowest was Yuxian, Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province (0.01), with the average of 0.52.

Fig 7

Potential geographical distribution of P. tatarinowii under current climate conditions.

This map was made in ArcGIS 10.2 using the resulting rasters produced by MaxEnt. The boundary was obtained from the Ministry of Natural Resources of the People’s Republic of China (http://bzdt.ch.mnr.gov.cn/index.html), Map review number: GS(2016)2923.

The area of the highly suitable habitat of P. tatarinowii was 4.19×104 km2, accounting for 0.44% of the total land area of China (Table 2), mainly located in northern Sichuan, southern Shaanxi, most of Beijing, central and southern Hebei, northern Henan and northeastern Chongqing. The area of the moderately suitable habitat was 56.36×104 km2, accounting for 5.87% of the total land area of China (Table 2), mainly distributed in most of Hubei, central and Northern Hunan, northern Jiangxi, southern Anhui, southern Henan, northern Guangxi, central and northeastern Sichuan, central Guizhou, southern Shaanxi and western Shandong. In summary, the area of the total suitable habitat of P. tatarinowii was 180.84×104km2, accounting for 18.8% of the total land area of China (Table 2). The potential suitable habitats of P. tatarinowii were distributed in the central and southwestern regions of China in a patchy manner. The highly suitable habitat was relatively narrow, and the range of its potential suitable habitat was highly consistent with the actual distribution, indicating that the simulation effect in this research was relatively accurate.

Table 2

Suitable areas for P. tatarinowii under climate change scenarios (104km2).

Period	Highly suitable habitat	Moderately suitable habitat	Poorly suitable habitat	Total suitable habitat
Current	4.19	56.36	120.29	180.84
2050, SSP1-2.6	6.19	8.39	59.69	74.27
2070, SSP1-2.6	7.06	14.25	66.59	87.9
2050, SSP5-8.5	11.67	26.55	76.39	114.61
2070, SSP5-8.5	41.04	40.56	92.79	174.39

3.3 Prediction of the potential geographical distribution of P. tatarinowii under climate chang scenarios

The MaxEnt model was used to predict the potential geographical distribution of P. tatarinowii in China under SSP1-2.6 and SSP5-8.5 emission scenarios in 2050s and 2070s (Fig 8), The areas of suitable habitats at different levels under two different emission scenarios in 2050s and 2070s have all undergone changes in varying degrees versus those under current climate conditions (Table 2).

Fig 8

Potential geographical distribution of P. tatarinowii under future climate change scenarios.

This map was made in ArcGIS 10.2 using the resulting rasters produced by MaxEnt. The boundary was obtained from the Ministry of Natural Resources of the People’s Republic of China (http://bzdt.ch.mnr.gov.cn/index.html), Map review number: GS(2016)2923.

Under the SSP1-2.6 emission scenario in 2050s, the area of the highly suitable habitat of P. tatarinowii was 6.19×104 km2, accounting for 0.64% of the total land area of China, 0.2% higher than that of P. tatarinowii under current climate condition. Under SSP1-2.6 in 2070s, the area of the highly suitable habitat of P. tatarinowii was 7.06×104 km2, accounting for 0.74% of the total land area of China, 0.30% higher than that of P. tatarinowii under current climate condition. Under SSP5-8.5 in 2050s, the area of the highly suitable habitat of P. tatarinowii was 11.67×104 km2, accounting for 1.22% of the total land area of China, 0.78% higher than that of P. tatarinowii under current climate condition. Under SSP5-8.5 in 2070s, the area of the highly suitable habitat of P. tatarinowii was 41.04×104 km2, accounting for 4.28% of the total land area of China, with an increase of 3.84% compared with the current climate condition. The area of the highly suitable habitat of P. tatarinowii showed a trend of increase under both emission scenarios in 2050s and 2070s, with the largest increase ratio under the emission scenario of SSP5-8.5 in 2070s (Fig 8, Table 2).

Under SSP1-2.6 emission scenario in 2050s, the area of the moderately suitable habitat of P. tatarinowii was 8.39×104 km2, accounting for 0.87% of the total land area of China, 5.0% lower than that of P. tatarinowii under current climate condition. Under SSP1-2.6 in 2070s, the area of the moderately suitable habitat of P. tatarinowii was 14.25×104 km2, accounting for 1.48% of the total land area of China, 4.39% lower than that of P. tatarinowii under current climate condition. Under SSP5-8.5 in 2050s, the area of the moderately suitable habitat of P. tatarinowii was 26.55×104 km2, accounting for 2.77% of the total land area of China, 3.1% lower than that of P. tatarinowii under current climate condition, having the largest ratio of increase. Under SSP5-8.5 in 2070s, the area of the moderately suitable habitat of P. tatarinowii was 40.56×104 km2, accounting for 4.23% of the total area of China, 1.64% lower than that of P. tatarinowii under current climate condition. Under future climate change scenarios, the area of the moderately suitable habitat of P. tatarinowii showed a decreasing trend under the two emission scenarios in 2050s and 2070s. It has the largest ratio of decrease under the emission scenario of SSP1-2.6 in 2050s (Fig 8, Table 2).

In summary, under future climate change scenarios, the poorly, moderately and total suitable habitats of P. tatarinowii showed a decreasing trend, while its highly suitable habitats showed an increasing trend, which was mainly due to the migration of poorly and moderately suitable habitats into higher and unsuitable habitats, which led to the increase of highly suitable habitats and the decrease of total suitable habitats.

Under the emission scenarios of 2050s and 2070s, the suitable habitat of P. tatarinowii had suffered loss in different degrees in central and southern China (Fig 9). Under SSP1-2.6 in 2050s, the loss area of suitable habitat of P. tatarinowii was the largest, with an area of 120.48×104 km2. Under SSP5-8.5 in 2070, the loss area of suitable habitat of P. tatarinowii was the smallest, with an area of 75.98×104 km2 (Table 3). The loss area of P. tatarinowii was mainly located in the southeast of China, which was mainly characterized by the loss of poorly suitable habitat and moderately suitable habitat. In some areas, the moderately suitable habitat would transformed into highly suitable habitat, leading to the increase of its potential suitable habitat and the overall migration to the north and higher latitudes. Under SSP1-2.6 in 2050s, the increasing area of suitable habitat of P. tatarinowii was the smallest, with an area of 14.09×104 km2. Under SSP5-8.5 in 2070s, the increasing area of suitable habitat of P. tatarinowii was the largest, which was 69.58×104 km2 (Table 3). The increasing areas of P. tatarinowii were mainly located in as Shanxi, Hebei and Beijing (Fig 9).

Fig 9

Changes of potential geographical distribution of P. tatarinowii under future climate change scenarios.

This map was made in ArcGIS 10.2 using the resulting rasters produced by MaxEnt. The boundary was obtained from the Ministry of Natural Resources of the People’s Republic of China (http://bzdt.ch.mnr.gov.cn/index.html), Map review number: GS(2016)2923.

Table 3

Future changes of P. tatarinowii in suitable habitat area (104km2).

Period	Loss	Gain	Stable
2050, SSP1-2.6	120.48	14.09	60.42
2070s, SSP1-2.6	111.59	18.84	69.31
2050s, SSP5-8.5	105.80	39.70	75.20
2070s, SSP5-8.5	75.98	69.58	105.09

3.4 Moving tendency of the gravity center under future climate change scenarios

Based on the gravity center of P. tatarinowii’s potential suitable habitat (potential survival probability≥0.2) under current climate condition and future climate change scenarios, the moving track and change trend of its potential suitable habitat were analyzed (Fig 10). Under SSP1-2.6, the gravity center of P. tatarinowii would migrate from the coordinate of 30.01°N, 112.23°E (Current) to the coordinate of 32.73°N, 112.19°E (2050s), and then to the coordinate of 35.06°N, 112.19°E (2070s). Under SSP5-8.5, the gravity center from the coordinate of 30.01°N, 112.23°E (Current) to the coordinate of 35.72°N, 112.79°E (2050s), and then to the coordinate of 34.90°N, 112.51°E (2070s). Under the two emission scenarios in 2050s and 2070s, the gravity center of the potential suitable habitat of P. tatarinowii tended to migrate to the the north and the higher latitudes. Under SSP5-8.5 in 2050s, the migration trend of the gravity center was the most obvious (Fig 10). In conclusion, under future climate change scenarios, the potential suitable habitat of P. tatarinowii would migrate to the north and higher latitudes.

Fig 10

Changes in gravity center of the potential suitable habitat of P. tatarinowii and its moving tendency under future climate change scenarios.

4 Discussion

4.1 Limitations of climatic variables on potential geographical distribution of P. tatarinowii

Overall accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, kappa statistics (Kappa), true skill statistic (TSS) and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve are the commonly used indicators to evaluate the accuracy of MaxEnt [52, 53]. ROC curve is not affected by the threshold, and is considered to be one of the best evaluation indexes at present. MaxEnt software can draw ROC curve automatically, so it is widely used to evaluate MaxEnt’s performance. For example, Li et al. used the AUC (area under the ROC curve) to quantify the accuracy of MaxEnt model in prediction of three Coptis herbs in China [54]. Liu et al. selected ROC curve to determine the accuracy of MaxEnt in predicting suitable habitats for Alnus cremastogyne [44]. Therefore, ROC curve was used in our study.

The prediction results of MaxEnt model showed that the important environmental variables that limited the potential geographical distribution of P. tatarinowii were temperature variables (the min temperature of coldest month, isothermality and the mean diurnal range) and precipitation variables (the precipitation of wettest month). This research showed that with the increase of the min temperature of coldest month, the survival probability of P. tatarinowii increased. Related studies showed that low temperature has serious damage to P. tatarinowii, causing irreversible damage to its biofilm. It also showed that P. tatarinowii was sensitive to low temperature stress, which verified the results accuracy of this research.

Relevant research showed that P. tatarinowii had good adaptability to arid limestone habitat. And the distribution pattern of P. tatarinowii population changed with age, indicating that its distribution pattern was closely associated with its biological properties and habitat conditions [31]. P. tatarinowii is a sun-loving and calcium-loving plant, and its cluster distribution will continue to be maintained if it is not disturbed during the growing of seedlings or young trees [55]. When the population grows with age, its demand for light, nutrients and water increases, and the competition intensifies within or between its populations. Integrated with human interference and other factors, it will lead to self-thinning and alien thinning, causing reduction of the population aggregation intensity. This indicated that P. tatarinowii had certain requirements for water during its growth. As P. tatarinowii grows in relatively arid areas, precipitation plays the role of its main water source, which further verified the accuracy of the results in this research arguing that the survival probability of P. tatarinowii increases with the increase of precipitation. This research conducts predictions on potential geographical distribution of P. tatarinowii in China, and identifies the climatic variables which limits the potential geographical distribution of P. tatarinowii, and proposes that the expansion of the study area may change the range of environmental factors which limit the growth of P. tatarinowii.

Other environmental variables, such as vegetation coverage, also have certain influence on the potential geographical distribution of P. tatarinowii. However, this variable is not included in the simulation because it is impossible to accurately predict the change of vegetation coverage in China under climate change. As a result, some of the potential geographical distribution areas obtained in this research may be unsuitable for P. tatarinowii to survive, and local hydrogeological conditions must be taken into consideration in the practical application. However, the results of this study are only the first step of macro planning, and play a guiding role in the scientific management and habitat protection of P. tatarinowii.

4.2 Changes of potential geographical distribution of P. tatarinowii under future climate change scenarios

Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs) proposed in the sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2021 shows that the range of climate warming, the increase of temperature and the increase of precipitation are becoming more prominent [56]. Thomas et al. found that 15 ~37% of the species would face the extinction risk under scenarios of moderate emission concentration in 2050s while other species would face little extinction risk, and some species even would benefit from climate warming [57]. This suggested that the impact of climate warming on the potential geographical distribution of species has two sides, and not all species are at risk of extinction or all have benefits under climate change. Our results showed that under the future climate change scenario, some regions in China would become unsuitable for the distribution of P. tatarinowii, while some regions would become suitable. Temperature and precipitation have an significant impact on the growth of P. tatarinowii, yet under SSP5-8.5 scenario in 2070s, with the increase of emission concentration, the temperature will rise, which may expand the loss scope of suitable habitat of P. tatarinowii. This may also be the reason for the largest areas loss of P. tatarinowii in this situation.

As far as the change of distribution center of gravity is concerned, Leng et al. (2008) used RF model to analyze the impact of climate change on the potential geographical distribution of three kinds of larches in Northeast China, showing that the potential geographical distribution of these three larches (Larix spp.) will obviously migrate to higher latitudes under future climate change scenarios [58]. Chen et al. studied species distribution through meta-analysis as well as other methods, and the results showed that species distribution might migrate to higher latitudes at an average speed of 16.9 km per decade [59]. Bellard et al. simulated the potential geographical distribution of 100 most aggressive non-native species in the world, showing that the potential geographical distribution of these species generally showed a trend of northward expansion [60]. Thuiller found that most species would migrate northward under the background of climate warming [61]. The change trend of suitable habitat of P. tatarinowii in the future was basically consistent with this phenomenon. The impact of climate warming on the potential geographical distribution of species is mainly manifested in the migration of the potential geographical distribution of species to higher latitude or higher altitude, as well as the expansion and contraction of suitable areas. The potential suitable habitat of P. tatarinowii under future climate change scenarios would migrate to higher latitudes and northern regions, remaining consistent with this feature in this research.

4.3 Limitation and innovation of this research

Relict plants are of great value in the study of paleoclimate, paleogeography and floristic changes. Using SDMs to simulate the past, current and future changes of suitable habitat of relict plants is an effective method. Xu et al. simulated the change of suitable growth area of Gymnocarpos przewalskii from the last interglacial to current based on MaxEnt [62]. Duan et al. used MaxEnt, Bioclim and Domain to predict the potential suitable areas of Ammopiptanthus in the last interglacial period, the last glacial maximum, current and 2050s [63]. In this study, the distribution of P. tatarinowii in the past period was not simulated, which should be supplemented in the next work. Studies showed that human activities had great impact on the geographical distribution pattern of species. Sayit et al. found that after adding the variable of human activity intensity, the suitable proportion of Calligonum mongolicum simulated by MaxEnt decreased from 13.04% to 9.57% [64]. Cao et al. pointed out that human activities reduced the potential distribution of Swertia przewalskii by 32% [65]. However, the change of human activity intensity in the future is not clear, so it is not selected. Therefore, it can be inferred that the future suitable area of P. tatarinowii simulated in this study is wider than the actual situation.

Climate change has an indirect impact on the population and distribution characteristics of P. tatarinowii through directly affecting the ecosystem. Besides, the population structure and spatial distribution pattern of P. tatarinowii population are also affected by many factors, such as the local habitat within the population area, the biological and ecological properties of P. tatarinowii, as well as human interference, and so on. Under the comprehensive action of the above factors, the seedlings and young trees of P. tatarinowii population are few, the living environment of the existing plants is not ideal, and the population as a whole shows a declining trend. Furthermore, since most of the existing population distribution areas exist in a manner of isolated islands, resulting in population division and high inbreeding rate, causing the population further decline. Therefore, how to protect P. tatarinowii resources is an urgent and arduous task. Creating a protected area in the natural distribution area of P. tatarinowii for in-situ conservation could not only contribute to the natural regeneration of the population, but also avoid the risk of acclimatization caused by ex-situ conservation. Under the existing conditions, we may protect as many P. tatarinowii populations as possible, decrease human interference and reduce damage to its habitat, and appropriately increase the gene exchange among populations, so as to achieve the purpose of effective protection, and make the endangered tree species get better reproduction. This research on the potential geographical distribution pattern of P. tatarinowii will be helpful to understand its population dynamics and development trend. It will not only provide a theoretical basis for the adjustment when the habitat changes or the population structure changes due to human influence, but also bring important theoretical and practical significance for the exploration of endangered mechanism of its population, the rational protection and proliferation of P. tatarinowii. It will also provide a theoretical basis for the further study of P. tatarinowii population ecology.

5 Conclusion

The domain environmental variables affecting the potential geographical distribution of P. tatarinowii under current climate condition were temperature factor (min temperature of coldest month, isothermality and mean diurnal range) and precipitation variables (precipitation of wettest month). Seasonal changes of temperature and precipitation represent changes of water and heat distribution pattern. The change of potential geographical distribution of P. tatarinowii was the result of multiple factors. The potential geographical distribution of P. tatarinowii under current climate condition was mainly in the central and southeast regions of China. Under the low and high emission scenarios in 2050s and 2070s, the highly suitable habitats showed a trend of increase. The poorly, highly and total suitable habitats showed a trend of decrease. Potential suitable habitats tended to migrate to higher latitudes and northern regions. By studying the potential geographical distribution pattern and dynamics law of P. tatarinowii, this paper summarized the change trend of P. tatarinowii’s distribution pattern, and put forward scientific protection strategies.

Occurrence records of Pteroceltis tatarinowii with latitude and longitude information of the location in China.

(CSV)

Click here for additional data file.

Percent contribution of 19 bioclimatic variables.

(DOCX)

Click here for additional data file.

Pairwise Pearson’ s correlation coefficients of environmental variables.

(DOCX)

Click here for additional data file.

23 Nov 2021

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Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: The MS is technically valid and author have used appropriate modeling techniques and validations criteria. Also the MS is written in proper English language. All the methods and analysis are described well.

Reviewer #2: Abstract seems to qualitatively stated. Pls speak numerically.

The authors predicted the future using the emission scenarios. How about the past? What happened during the calibration period?

The title says site suitability analysis for Pteroceltis tatarinowii. Should the paper only be concerned with this? The first sentence of the introduction gives me the impression that authors are evaluating the impact of climate change on the distribution of this plant. If so, the title and abstract need to change accordingly.

English usage needs serious improvement.

The authors need to provide a better literature review on Maxent application in china the results obtained. The advantages and disadvantages of this model should be provided in comparison with other similar models.

I believe the intro part for the Pteroceltis tatarinowii species could be briefed.

What is the innovation of this research?

The methods section could be improved. The readers are only concerned with the general flow of the work. Small details like saving a file in .CSV format is not relevant.

How did you identify the inaccurate sites in the distribution records of P. tatarinowii. What criteria did you use?

Figure 1 legend if not informative. What are those high and low values? If possible, use a graded symbology for the distribution points in terms of frequency. Larger circles indicating higher numbers of this plant. This way the reader can guess which part of China are more suitable for this plant. If the study area is the whole country of china, I believe the first part of the methods section must be concerned with describing the distribution of environmental factors across China.

“…scenarios could describe the prediction results of future climate change more scientifically.” Citation pls.

The terms used in table 1 should be clarified in the text.

It would be useful to have a flowchart for the analysis. The details can be provided in this chart instead of the text.

“… The closer the AUC ...simulation accuracy were divided into four grades: poor….” Citation pls.

Section 3.2 is the repetition of Fig 6. Pls provide only the results not noticeable on the map.

Based on your results in table 2, precipitation in China will increase significantly in the future under the climate change. The results in this table are only valid if there will be no more expansion of human activities in China which is highly unlikely.

A lot of the results are repeated in the discussion section. Pls only elaborate on your findings and avoid restating the results. This section has become long and tedious.

**********

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Masoud Jafari Shalamzari

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17 Dec 2021

Dear Editors and Reviewers:

We would like to thank the editor for giving us a chance to resubmit our manuscript entitled “Prediction of Potential Geographic Distribution of Relict Plant Pteroceltis tatarinowii in China Based on MaxEnt” (ID: PONE-D-21-32985), and also thank the reviewers for giving us constructive suggestions which would help us both in English and in depth to improve the quality of the paper. Here we submit a new version of our manuscript with the title “Potential Geographic Distribution of Relict Plant Pteroceltis tatarinowii in China under Climate Change Scenarios”, which has been modified according to the reviewers’ suggestions. Efforts were also made to correct the mistakes and improve the English of the manuscript. We mark all the changes in red in the revised manuscript. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as flowing:

Responds to the comments of Editor：

1.Comment: We note that Figures 1, 6, 7 , 8, 9 and 10 in your submission contain [map/satellite] images which may be copyrighted. All PLOS content is published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which means that the manuscript, images, and Supporting Information files will be freely available online, and any third party is permitted to access, download, copy, distribute, and use these materials in any way, even commercially, with proper attribution. For these reasons, we cannot publish previously copyrighted maps or satellite images created using proprietary data, such as Google software (Google Maps, Street View, and Earth). For more information, see our copyright guidelines: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/licenses-and-copyright.

Response: The 1：16 million Chinese administrative division map was taken from the Ministry of Natural Resources of the People's Republic of China (http://bzdt.ch.mnr.gov.cn/index.html) (L146-L147). We confirm that there is no copyright issues, and they can be freely available online, and any third party is permitted to access, download, copy, distribute, and use these Figures in any way, even commercially, with proper attribution.

Responds to the comments of Reviewer #2:

1.Comment: Abstract seems to qualitatively stated. Pls speak numerically.

Response: Thank you for your valuable advice. The abstract has been modified and stated numerically. (L35-L39).

2.Comment: (The authors predicted the future using the emission scenarios. How about the past? What happened during the calibration period?)

Response: Thank you for your valuable advice. In the discussion, we pointed out the significance of simulating past scenarios and the limitation of this study. (L405-L412).

.

3. Comment: The title says site suitability analysis for Pteroceltis tatarinowii. Should the paper only be concerned with this? The first sentence of the introduction gives me the impression that authors are evaluating the impact of climate change on the distribution of this plant. If so, the title and abstract need to change accordingly.

Response: Thank you for your valuable advice. We revised the title to “Potential Geographic Distribution of Relict Plant Pteroceltis tatarinowii in China under Climate Change Scenarios” .

4. Comment: The authors need to provide a better literature review on Maxent application in china the results obtained. The advantages and disadvantages of this model should be provided in comparison with other similar models.

Response: Thank you for careful work. We provide a better literature review in Introduction (L72-L81).

5.Comment: I believe the intro part for the Pteroceltis tatarinowii species could be briefed..

Response: Thank you for your careful work. As Reviewer suggested that the intro part for the Pteroceltis tatarinowii species was briefed (L82-L91).

6. Comment: What is the innovation of this research?.

Response: As Reviewer suggested that the innovation of this research was supplemented in discussion part (L420-L442).

7. Comment: The methods section could be improved. The readers are only concerned with the general flow of the work. Small details like saving a file in .CSV format is not relevant.

Response: Thank you for your careful work. The methods section was improved according to reviewer’s comment (L127, L138-L139, L146, L155)

8.Comment: How did you identify the inaccurate sites in the distribution records of P. tatarinowii. What criteria did you use?

Response: The method to identify the inaccurate site was added in L120-L127

9.Comment: Figure 1 legend if not informative. What are those high and low values?

Response: Thank you for your careful work. The information in the legend of Figure 1 has been improved (Fig. 2)

10. If possible, use a graded symbology for the distribution points in terms of frequency. Larger circles indicating higher numbers of this plant. This way the reader can guess which part of China are more suitable for this plant.

Response: As Reviewer suggested that a graded symbology for the distribution points in terms of frequency. (Fig. 2)

.

10. Comment: If the study area is the whole country of china, I believe the first part of the methods section must be concerned with describing the distribution of environmental factors across China.

Response: Thank you for your valuable advice. As Reviewer suggested that the describing of climate factors across China was added in L105-L116.

11. Comment: “…scenarios could describe the prediction results of future climate change more scientifically.” Citation pls.

Response: Thank you for your careful work. Citation was supplemented (L139).

12. Comment: The terms used in table 1 should be clarified in the text.

Response: Thank you for your careful work. We have clarified.the terms used in Table 1.

13. Comment: It would be useful to have a flowchart for the analysis. The details can be provided in this chart instead of the text..

Response: .Thank you for your valuable advice. We have supplemented a flowchart. (Fig. 1)

14. Comment: “… The closer the AUC ...simulation accuracy were divided into four grades: poor….” Citation pls.

Response: Thank you for your careful work. Citation was added. (L168, L170)

15. Comment: Section 3.2 is the repetition of Fig 6. Pls provide only the results not noticeable on the map.

Response: We have revised the expression of section 3.2 (L248-L249, L251-L253).

16. Comment: Based on your results in table 2, precipitation in China will increase significantly in the future under the climate change. The results in this table are only valid if there will be no more expansion of human activities in China which is highly unlikely.

Response: As Reviewer suggested that the influence of human activities was discussed in section 4.3 (L412-L419).

17.Comment: A lot of the results are repeated in the discussion section. Pls only elaborate on your findings and avoid restating the results. This section has become long and tedious.

Response: Thank you for your careful work. We revised the discussion part and deleted the repeated part.

18.Comment: English usage needs serious improvement.

Response: Thank you for your careful work. We have made every effort to improve the use of English.

We tried our best to improve the manuscript and made some changes in the manuscript. These changes will not influence the content and framework of the paper. And here we did not list the changes but marked in red in revised paper.

We appreciate for Editors/Reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval.

Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

Submitted filename: Response to reviewers.docx

Click here for additional data file.

17 Feb 2022

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If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Randeep Singh

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

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Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #4: (No Response)

Reviewer #5: (No Response)

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: No

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: No

Reviewer #5: No

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: No

Reviewer #5: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

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Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: No

Reviewer #5: No

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #2: I have reviewed the file and it seems that you have done a great effort in enhancing the quality of your paper. Thanks for considering my comments.

Wish you all the luck in your future endeavors.

Reviewer #3: As a unique single species genus in China, Pteroceltis tatarinowii is scattered or scattered in 19 provinces and regions in China. Due to the destruction of natural vegetation, it is often cut down in large quantities, resulting in the gradual reduction of the distribution area, the forest appearance is broken, and there are few residues in some areas. Therefore, the author uses MaxEnt, which is widely used at present, to simulate its distribution, which is of great significance for the resource protection of this tree species. The manuscript method is accurate, the result is reasonable, the discussion is sufficient, and has high scientific value. After review, I think the author has carefully revised the comments of the reviewers and reached the standard of publication. So my suggestion is to accept.

Reviewer #4: The manuscript title “Potential Geographic Distribution of Relict Plant Pteroceltis tatarinowii in China under Climate Change Scenarios” model the potential distribution of Pteroceltis tatarinowii using MaxEnt and 11 environmental variables. The manuscript is still some distance away from publication.

There are some errors need to address.

1. Page4, line 127: “second” this part might be needs a reference to confirm your method.

2. page4, line133：Please explain why choice environment variables from worldclim? Where you get the Al, aspect and slope?

3. page4, section 2.3: Considering the uncertainty of future climate scenarios, assessments of the impact should incorporate data from a range of climate models that represent different climate sensitivities to various possible future climate change projections. Thus, to reduce this impact on global circulation models (GCMs) on which the future climate datasets are based, an ensemble forecasting procedure was need to use in current study.

4. page5, line144：please list the result of Spearman correlation analysis in your manuscript. How to implement the Spearman correlation analysis? Which software? Please list in manuscript.

5. page5, section 2.4: please list the detail parameters of maxent were used in your study.

6. page5, section 2.4: which method were used to confirm the RM and feature? and how to implement? How to get the LQHPT?

7. page5, section 2.5: AUC have many disadvantages to assess the performance of model, especially for Maxent. Thus, the pROC, TSS or Kappa were used to assess the model.

8. page14, references: Please keep the reference format consistent. Thank you!

Reviewer #5: I read the MS with interest and I noticed that the authors tried to address all the points highlighted by the reviewer; however, I note again several critical points and even the English stile is critical and a thorough revision is necessary to make the text suitable for a scientific community.

Here are my main observations:

- I imagine that “absence points” (together with those of occurrence) were also used to build the model but nothing is said about this in the text. Please also clarify this aspect which is not mentioned in the text (how they were generated or directly detected).

- even the creation of the buffer does not convince me since it is a relict tertiary plant. why was it necessary to do this (and how does it relate to the altitude, slope and aspect reported in table 1?)

- all variables were imported into the MaxEnt and repeated 3 times (L141): pls justify this procedure.

- In the method section “223 effective distribution points of P. tatarinowii and 11 environmental variables” were considered, but in the results only “96 distribution points” were mentioned. What happened?

- L322: the authors refer of "the gravity center of P. tatarinowii's potential suitable habitat"; this treatment upsets me and I do not understand how it is possible to associate the potential habitat of a tertiary relict plant with a “center of gravity”. They seem to me to be two extremely different and unrelated concepts. My suspicion is that a good graphic picture of the model is being used to try to define something ecologically much more complex. So that, the authors refer to “potential geographical distribution (L388). The authors should clarify this fundamental aspect. Curiously, in fact, the authors declare (LL363-366) that “vegetation coverage, also have certain influence on the potential geographical distribution of P. tatarinowii. However, this variable is not included in the simulation because ... .. "but this is a primary trait that defines the habitat of the species. There is a lot of literature on this aspect which should be carefully considered.

- L418: one of the main results of this study is that “the future suitable area of P. tatarinowii simulated in this study is wider than the actual situation”. this seems counterintuitive to me: I expect a tertiary relict plant to be damaged by global change and not the other way around. Assuming that the model is accurate (as stated on the basis of its values) how can this ecological contradiction be explained? if it doesn't make sense I would think the model is beautiful but absolutely not predictive. In this section of “limitations” this point should be explored in detail because curiously other studies, in other contexts (see for example https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-020-02029-y + https://doi.org/10.3390/d12040157), highlight that many models are considered without a critical evaluation while, verified in the field, they reveal only unrealistic simulations

- considering what has just been said, it does not seem to me that it can be stated that "Using SDMs to simulate the past, current and future changes of suitable habitat of relict plants is an effective method". Much precaution should be used on this issue.

I expect the authors to convince me of the soundness of their study.

Minor points:

- the authors speak of a rare species but I observe very large distribution areas and therefore we should speak only of threatened species (specifying what it is threatened by).

- LL54-57: this sentence is not clear and, indeed, in its present form it seems just wrong / contradictory.

- L58; pls add the year after IPCC

-LL72-73: …among others

- L82: add patronymic

-L86: I believe that the ecological interest prevails over the other two.

- L89: only one population?

- LL99-101: delete this sentence

-L118: the occurrences of

- Table 1: Altitude, aspect and slope mean values (on not)?

- L373: add year of publication

-L391: meta-analysis

-L405: not all tertiary relict plants are “living fossil plants”.

-LL407-413: add nothing to the MS and should be eliminated.

-L422: mini?

**********

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Reviewer #2: Yes: Masoud Jafari Shalamzari

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: No

Reviewer #5: No

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2 Mar 2022

Dear Editors and Reviewers:

We would like to thank the editor for giving us a chance to resubmit our manuscript entitled “Prediction of Potential Geographic Distribution of Relict Plant Pteroceltis tatarinowii in China Based on MaxEnt” (ID: PONE-D-21-32985), and also thank the reviewers for giving us constructive suggestions which would help us both in English and in depth to improve the quality of the paper. Here we submit a new version of our manuscript with the title “Potential Geographic Distribution of Relict Plant Pteroceltis tatarinowii in China under Climate Change Scenarios”, which has been modified according to the reviewers’ suggestions. Efforts were also made to correct the mistakes and improve the English of the manuscript. We mark all the changes in red in the revised manuscript. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as flowing:

Responds to the comments of Reviewer #4:

1.Comment: Page4, line 127: “second” this part might be needs a reference to confirm your method.

Response: Thank you for your valuable advice. A reference has been added to confirm my method (L127).

2.Comment: Please explain why choice environment variables from worldclim?

Response: Thank you for your valuable advice. We have explained the reasons for choosing to download variables from worldclim and supplemented the corresponding references. (L132-L134).

3.Comment: Where you get the Al, aspect and slope?

Response: The sources of altitude, slope and aspect data have been supplemented. (L135-L136).

.

4. Comment: page4, section 2.3: Considering the uncertainty of future climate scenarios, assessments of the impact should incorporate data from a range of climate models that represent different climate sensitivities to various possible future climate change projections. Thus, to reduce this impact on global circulation models (GCMs) on which the future climate datasets are based, an ensemble forecasting procedure was need to use in current study.

Response: Thank you for your valuable advice. In L139-L140, the reasons for choosing BCC-CSM2-MR model have been supplemented..

5. Comment: page5, line144：please list your manuscript. How to implement the Spearman correlation analysis? Which software? Please list in manuscript.

Response: We provide the result of Spearman correlation analysis in Table S1.

6.Comment: page5, section 2.4: please list the detail parameters of maxent were used in your study.

Response: Thank you for your careful work. As Reviewer suggested that the detail parameters of maxent was supplemented (L157-L162).

7. Comment: page5, section 2.5: AUC have many disadvantages to assess the performance of model, especially for Maxent. Thus, the pROC, TSS or Kappa were used to assess the model.

Response: As reviewer suggested that the we have explained this point in the discussion and added supporting literature. (L349-L357).

Responds to the comments of Reviewer #5:

1. Comment: I imagine that “absence points” (together with those of occurrence) were also used to build the model but nothing is said about this in the text. Please also clarify this aspect which is not mentioned in the text (how they were generated or directly detected).

Response: An important feature of MaxEnt model is that only ‘no-absence points’ is required for modeling, which is supplemented in the introduction..(L75-L76)

2.Comment: even the creation of the buffer does not convince me since it is a relict tertiary plant. why was it necessary to do this (and how does it relate to the altitude, slope and aspect reported in table 1?

Response: Thank you for your valuable advice. The method for selecting distribution points was provided in L123-L127.

3.Comment: all variables were imported into the MaxEnt and repeated 3 times (L141): pls justify this procedure.

Response: Thank you for your careful work. We confirmed this procedure.

\\

8.4. Comment: In the method section “223 effective distribution points of P. tatarinowii and 11 environmental variables” were considered, but in the results only “96 distribution points” were mentioned. What happened?

Response: Thank you for your careful work. It should be 223 points (L127, L193)

.

5. Comment: L322: the authors refer of "the gravity center of P. tatarinowii's potential suitable habitat"; this treatment upsets me and I do not understand how it is possible to associate the potential habitat of a tertiary relict plant with a “center of gravity”. They seem to me to be two extremely different and unrelated concepts. My suspicion is that a good graphic picture of the model is being used to try to define something ecologically much more complex. So that, the authors refer to “potential geographical distribution (L388). The authors should clarify this fundamental aspect. Curiously, in fact, the authors declare (LL363-366) that “vegetation coverage, also have certain influence on the potential geographical distribution of P. tatarinowii. However, this variable is not included in the simulation because ... .. "but this is a primary trait that defines the habitat of the species. There is a lot of literature on this aspect which should be carefully considered.

Response: Thank you for your valuable advice. As Reviewer suggested that we have supplemented the research methods and references of gravity center in the method part.(L187-L189).

6. Comment: the authors speak of a rare species but I observe very large distribution areas and therefore we should speak only of threatened species (specifying what it is threatened by).

.

Response: Thank you for your careful work. After our verification, P. tatarinowii is a unique relic plant in China.

7. Comment: L54-57: this sentence is not clear and, indeed, in its present form it seems just wrong / contradictory.

Response: We have rewritten this sentence (L54-L55)

8. Comment: L58; pls add the year after IPCC

Response: We have added the year after IPCC(L57)

9. Comment: L72-73: …among others

Response: As reviewer suggested that we have corrected the sentence (L72)

10. Comment: - L82: add patronymic

Response: We have add patronymic (L81).

11. Comment: -L86: I believe that the ecological interest prevails over the other two.

Response: As Reviewer suggested that we have rewritten this sentence (L85).

12.Comment: L89: only one population?

Response: Thank you for your careful work. We have corrected it (L88).

13.Comment: L99-101: delete this sentence

Response: Thank you for your valuable advice. We have deleted this part.

14.Comment: L118: the occurrences of

Response: We have corrected it according to reviewer’s advice (L116)

15.Comment:L373: add year of publication

Response: We have added year of publication in L393.

16.Comment: L391: meta-analysis

Response: We have corrected in L410.

17.Comment: L405: not all tertiary relict plants are “living fossil plants”.

Response: Thank you for your careful work. We have corrected in L424.

18.Comment: L422: mini?.

Response: Thank you for your careful work. We have corrected it in L440.

19.Comment: L418: one of the main results of this study is that “the future suitable area of P. tatarinowii simulated in this study is wider than the actual situation”. this seems counterintuitive to me

Response: We explained this conclusion in the discussion (L435-L437).

We tried our best to improve the manuscript and made some changes in the manuscript. These changes will not influence the content and framework of the paper. And here we did not list the changes but marked in red in revised paper.

We appreciate for Editors/Reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval.

Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

Submitted filename: Response to reviewers.docx

Click here for additional data file.

15 Mar 2022

Potential Geographic Distribution of Relict Plant Pteroceltis tatarinowii in China under Climate Change Scenarios

PONE-D-21-32985R2

Dear Dr. Yang,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

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Randeep Singh

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

30 Mar 2022

PONE-D-21-32985R2

Potential Geographic Distribution of Relict Plant Pteroceltis tatarinowii in China under Climate Change Scenarios

Dear Dr. Yang:

I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org.

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Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access.

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on behalf of

Dr. Randeep Singh

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE