Habitat suitability mapping of stone pine ( Pinus pinea L.) under the effects of climate change

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ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Habitat suitability mapping of stone pine (Pinus pinea L.) under the effects of climate change Ayhan Akyol 1

&

Ömer K. Örücü 2 & E. Seda Arslan 2

Received: 9 February 2020 / Accepted: 3 September 2020 # Plant Science and Biodiversity Centre, Slovak Academy of Sciences 2020

Abstract Climate models predict that the Mediterranean region will experience a particularly marked increase in aridity during the 21st century when compared to other regions. This study examines the current and future potential geographical distribution of the stone pine (Pinus pinea L.), a species of considerable ecological and economic importance, in the light of aridity predictions in the Mediterranean region. For this purpose, 19 bioclimatic variables taken from the Worldclim database in 30 arc-second spatial resolution (∼1000 m) were used. The bioclimatic variables that displayed high correlations with one another when applied to 125 pieces of presence data pertaining to the species were reduced using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and the current and future potential distribution areas of the species were identified using MaxEnt 3.4.1 software. To determine the future geographical distribution of the species under the impact of climate change, the Community Climate System Model (CCSM ver. 4) was used to model the potential geographical distribution areas for two climate scenarios – Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5 – and two time periods (2041–2060 and 2061–2080). According to the model data, the predicted potential geographical distribution areas of the stone pine increase under the 2041–2060 and 2061–2080 RCP 4.5–8.5 scenarios and move northwards and towards higher altitudes. Knowledge of the current and future potential distribution maps of the species, and especially of the suitable/very suitable distribution areas, can be used in work on land use, afforestation, ecological restoration and the protection of the species. Keywords Climate change . Habitat suitability . MaxEnt . Mediterranean region . Species distribution model . Stone pine

Introduction Climate is one of the most important factor that determine the distribution of plant species and communities on the Earth and affect the propagation and growth of organisms (Guisan and Thuiller 2005; Lenoir et al. 2008; Bertrand et al. 2011) Climate change is a phenomenon that has been occurring

* Ayhan Akyol [email protected] Ömer K. Örücü [email protected] E. Seda Arslan [email protected] 1

Faculty of Forestry, Department of Forest Engineering, İzmir Kâtip Çelebi University, İzmir, Turkey

2

Faculty of Architecture, Department of Landscape Architecture, Süleyman Demirel University, Isparta, Turkey

naturally ever since the Earth’s atmosphere was formed, and which has regulated itself throughout history by causing changes in socio-ecological systems (Pandey and Bardsley 2015). Today, however, the climate is changing at an unprecedented rate in line with the increase in human activity. The average temperature, which increased