engleski

Maxent modelling for predicting the potential distribution of an amphi-Adriatic plant Festuca bosniaca Kumm. et Sendtn. (Poaceae)

Festuca L. is the most species-rich genus of the grasses in Europe. Festuca bosniaca (belonging to F. varia complex) is an Apennine-Balkan endemic species occurring in alpine and subalpine grasslands. We here investigated current and past (Last Glacial Maximum - LGM) habitat suitability of F. bosniaca using Species distribution modelling (SDM). Our models were built based on the collected occurrence points for F. bosniaca from various sources (a total of 103 points after filtering) and a set of eight selected environmental variables which included climatic and geomorphological predictors available for both periods. In addition, current habitat suitability was also predicted based on 13 selected predictors available exclusively for the current period, including additional variables that were not available for the LGM period. SDM was carried out using the Maximum Entropy method with 70% of the occurrences used for model training, and 30% of occurrences used for model evaluation. Projections for the LGM period were based on four general circular models (GCMs) (NCAR-CCSM4, MRI-CGCM3, MPI-ESM-P, MIROC-ESM) which were averaged into a consensus LGM projection. All the resulting models showed very good performance (AUC > 0.9) and the main environmental variables influencing habitat suitability of F. bosniaca were mean daily mean air temperatures of the wettest quarter (bio8), mean monthly precipitation amount of the warmest quarter (bio 19), mean daily mean air temperatures of the coldest quarter (bio11) and slope. In addition, current habitat suitability was also influenced by soil organic carbon content and number of snow days. Overall, predicted current distribution corresponded well to the known occurrences of F. bosniaca on the Balkan and Apennine peninsulas, with some potential undiscovered populations in the area of southern part of the Scardo-Pindic mountain range and the north-western part of Apennine peninsula. LGM predictions pointed to larger suitable areas in the past, suggesting that F. bosniaca might have had a wider distribution during LGM compared to present.

Festuca bosniaca, climate change, habitat suitability, maxent, species distribution modelling

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