Feng Gang, Xiong Ying-Jie, Wei Hua-Yu, Li Yao, Mao Ling-Feng
Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Ecology and Resource Use of the Mongolian Plateau & Inner Mongolia Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecology, School of Ecology and Environment, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, China.
Co-Innovation Center for Sustainable Forestry in Southern China, College of Biology and the Environment, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China.
Plant Divers. 2022 Oct 8;45(4):479-484. doi: 10.1016/j.pld.2022.09.007. eCollection 2023 Jul.
Medicinal plants provide crucial ecosystem services, especially in developing countries such as China, which harbors diverse endemic medicinal plant species with substantial cultural and economic value. Accordingly, understanding the patterns and drivers of medicinal plant distribution is critical. However, few studies have investigated the patterns and drivers of endemic medicinal plants distribution in China. Here, we linked endemic medicinal plants distribution with possible explanatory variables, i.e., paleoclimate change, contemporary climate, altitudinal range and ethnic minority human population size at the prefecture city level in China. Our results show that endemic medicinal plants are concentrated in southern China, especially in southwestern China. Notably, both endemic medicinal plant species richness and the ratio of endemic medicinal plant species richness are negatively associated with glacial-interglacial anomaly in temperature, and positively associated with contemporary precipitation and altitudinal range. In addition, we found that endemic medicinal plant species richness is positively associated with ethnic minority population sizes as well as its ratio to the overall population size. These findings suggest that the distribution of endemic medicinal plants is determined by multiple drivers. Furthermore, our findings stress that dramatic future climate changes and massive anthropogenic activities in southern China pose great challenges to the conservation of China's endemic medicinal plants.
药用植物提供关键的生态系统服务，尤其是在中国这样的发展中国家，中国拥有多种具有重大文化和经济价值的本土药用植物物种。因此，了解药用植物分布的模式和驱动因素至关重要。然而，很少有研究调查中国本土药用植物分布的模式和驱动因素。在此，我们将中国地级市层面的本土药用植物分布与可能的解释变量联系起来，即古气候变化、当代气候、海拔范围和少数民族人口规模。我们的结果表明，本土药用植物集中在中国南方，尤其是中国西南部。值得注意的是，本土药用植物物种丰富度和本土药用植物物种丰富度比例均与温度的冰期 - 间冰期异常呈负相关，与当代降水量和海拔范围呈正相关。此外，我们发现本土药用植物物种丰富度与少数民族人口规模及其占总人口规模的比例呈正相关。这些发现表明，本土药用植物的分布由多种驱动因素决定。此外，我们的研究结果强调，中国南方未来剧烈的气候变化和大规模的人为活动对中国本土药用植物的保护构成了巨大挑战。
