Print PageThe decline in biodiversity due to increased conversion of wild areas for human developments has influenced the distribution and abundance of plant species negatively. Korean government enacted various laws to conserve endangered species and protected areas. The korean winter hazel (Corylopsis gotoana var. Coreana Uyeki), a Korean native endangered plant, has very narrow and isolated distribution range where are only some southern parts or very restricted northern parts of South Korea. It has been designated as an endangered species by Korean government to prevent its extinction. Although there were a few studies for characteristics of its habitats on a local scale, its information on a national scale is lacking. Therefore, the purposes of this study are to investigate the characteristics of korean winter hazel’s habitat on a national scale using a species distribution model (SDM) and to predict future distribution under climate scenarios for conservation planning. We used MAXENT as a SDM and National Ecosystem Survey data as location data, and built spatial data as environmental variables (climate, soil, topography and vegetation structure).
Results/Conclusions
The results showed that the 5 cross-validated AUC was higher than 0.9, climate factors (precipitation of warmest quarter, temperature annual range and mean temperature of driest quarter) were the most significant factors and topographic factors (elevation and slope) were also contributed to korean winter hazel’s distribution on a national scale. In according to model results, we could expect that climate affects on future distribution, therefore we projected the model to future using climate scenarios and predicted future distribution of korean winter hazel under climate change. This is useful for endangered species conservation planning.
