Predicting the current and future distributions of Pennisetum alopecuroides (L.) in China under climate change based on the MaxEnt model

PLOS ONE RESEARCH ARTICLE Predicting the current and future distributions of Pennisetum alopecuroides (L.) in China under climate change based on the MaxEnt model Yuandong Xu ID, Ruifen Zhu, Lifang Gao, Dejun Huang, Yan Fan, Chang Liu, Jishan Chen* Institute of Pratacultural Science, Chongqing Academy of Animal Sciences, Rongchang, China * Abstract a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Xu Y, Zhu R, Gao L, Huang D, Fan Y, Liu C, et al. (2023) Predicting the current and future distributions of Pennisetum alopecuroides (L.) in China under climate change based on the MaxEnt model. PLoS ONE 18(4): e0281254. https://doi. org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281254 Editor: Randeep Singh, Amity University, INDIA Received: July 10, 2022 Accepted: January 18, 2023 Published: April 4, 2023 Copyright: This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting information file. Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Pennisetum alopecuroides (L.), one of the important exotic plants, gives great economic value to animal husbandry in China. In order to study the distribution of Pennisetum alopecuroides (L.) in China and its response to climate change, based on the distribution records of Pennisetum alopecuroides (L.), our study used the Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) model and geographic information system (GIS) methods, combined with environmental factors such as climate and terrain, to predict the potential distribution areas suitable for Pennisetum alopecuroides (L.) under current and future climate scenarios. The results showed that annual precipitation was the most important factor affecting the distribution of Pennisetum alopecuroides (L.). In current climate scenario, the total area of suitable for Pennisetum alopecuroides (L.) growth was about 576.5 km2, accounting for about 60.5% of the total land area of China. Among all the suitable areas, the area of low, middle and high fitness areas accounted for 5.69%, 20.55% and 33.81% of the total area respectively. In future climate scenarios (RCP4.5), the suitable area of Pennisetum alopecuroides (L.) would decrease with climate change, showing a clear trend of northward expansion in China. A concentrated and contiguous distribution region for Pennisetum alopecuroides (L.) would appear in northeast China. The model was tested by the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC), and the average area under the curve of ROC of the training set was 0.985, which was reliable. This work provided an important reference and theoretical basis for the efficient utilization and plant regionalization of Pennisetum alopecuroides (L.) in future. 1. Introduction Climate is one of the most important ecological factors that determine the distribution of plants [1], and the response of vegetation to climate change and the regional change of plant distribution under the influence of climate are the hot issues of biogeography and macroecology [2]. The global average surface temperature has climbed by 1˚C since the latter half of the 19 century, and the increase of it is supposed to reach, or even exceed 1.5˚C between 2021 and 2040. Climate warming will greatly affect the species distribution and ecosystem functions of natural ecosystems in China [3]. Therefore, the research on the prediction of species PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281254 April 4, 2023 1 / 13 PLOS ONE Predicting the current and future distributions of Pennisetum alopecuroides (L.) distribution under the background of climate change can provide strategic basis for agricultural production, biodiversity conservation and ecosystem sustainable development. Advances in Geographic Information System (GIS) technology and related statistical modeling provide new tools for biogeography [4]. Species distribution models (SDM) are commonly used to predict the potential biogeographic extent of climate change and its consequences [5–7]. SDM (SDM) is a kind of quantitative model based on niche theory to study the environmental tolerance of species on the basis of known distribution points and related environmental factors [8, 9]. Combined with global climate models (GCM), SDM can predict the range change of species distribution under future climate scenarios. Commonly used SDM includes bioclimate analysis and prediction system (BIOCLIMM), genetic algorithm for ruleset production (GARP) and maximum entropy modeling (MaxEnt). Among them, MaxEnt model still has the advantage of good prediction when the distribution of species is small or the number of species is uncertain and the correlation with environmental variables is unknown [10]. For example, Zhang et al. [11] found that the MaxEnt model can accurately predict the distribution of Populus Euphratica, the main environmental factors are temperature and precipitation factors. Yan et al. [12] compared the prediction effect of MaxEnt and GARP model on the potential risk area of plague, which shows that MaxEnt is more accurate and GARP model has a wider range of prediction. Pennisetum alopecuroides (L.) is the fast-growing plant species in tropical and subtropical area with high forage value and wide distribution [13, 14]. Pennisetum alopecuroides (L.) is considered as one of the major alien species in the south area and has the ability of wide distribution. For example, according to the recent investigations of forage resources in Sichuan China, the planting area in Sichuan is the second place, accounting for 28.9% of the total plantation area. Generally speaking, the research on the distribution of Pennisetum alopecuroides (L.) mainly focuses on the features of the biased toward the south. For example, Wang et al. [15] noted that Pennisetum alopecuroides (L.) is highly asexual and has a wide range of adaptations. However, under the influence of global warming, it is still uncertain how to predict the suitable area according to the geographical distribution characteristics of Pennisetum alopecuroides (L.) in China. In this paper, the distribution pattern of Pennisetum alopecuroides (L.) in China and the influence of climate change on it are analyzed on the macro-scale. This paper mainly solves two scientific problems: 1) the distribution of potential suitable areas of different grades of Pennisetum alopecuroides (L.) in the current period; 2) the prediction of the change trend of the range of suitable areas of Pennisetum alopecuroides (L.) in the future climate scenarios. This is of great significance to the protection and artificial cultivation of Chinese forage, the efficient utilization of Ch (...truncated)