Potential Distribution Prediction of Retz. in China Under Current and Future Climate Scenarios.

Climate change in the future could potentially expand, shrink, or alter the habitats of numerous species, leading to changes in their spatial distributions. Predicting suitable areas for cultivating medicinal plants through modeling has become an effective tool for assessing site suitability and conserving medicinal plant resources. Utilizing GIS and MaxEnt model, we predicted the spatial distribution of Retz. in China for the current and for the future (2050s and 2070s) under the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 representative concentration pathways. In this study, we utilized 73 occurrence records and incorporated eight environmental factors from WorldClim for the modeling process. The findings revealed that the evaluation of the model's performance was based on the area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC). All AUC values exceeded 0.9, classifying these models as "Excellent." Additionally, the jackknife test analysis revealed that the main influential variables were bio11 and bio4. Under the present climate conditions, the estimated total suitable habitat for is approximately 29.14 × 10 km, representing around 2.78% of China's total land area. Within these suitable regions, high suitability, medium suitability, and low suitability areas make up 0.39%, 0.54%, and 1.85% of the total area, respectively. According to future climate, the potential growth range of is expected to expand due to climate variability, showing a significant pattern of expansion towards the north and east within China. In the 2050s and 2070s, the total area of regions with high suitability, medium suitability, and low suitability under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 will increase compared to the current distribution. This study will provide theoretical suggestions for preservation, management, and sustainable utilization of resources.