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How will forest fires impact the distribution of endemic plants in the Himalayan biodiversity hotspot?

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Abstract

Global warming is causing shifts in distribution of plants, leading to alterations in the native flora. In addition, increased intensity and frequency of wildfires is posing threats to Himalayan ecosystems. Modeling a species’ ecological niche and its potential distribution under projected impacts of climate change and distribution of wildfires provides an understanding of the behavior of native flora in altered climatic conditions. In this study, we predicted future distribution of four endemic tree species Pinus roxburghii, Quercus semecarpifolia, Rhododendron arboretum, and Cedrus deodara in western Himalaya under A1B scenario of Special Report on Emission Scenarios for 2030, 2050, and 2080, under two conditions: (i) without wildfire and (ii) with wildfire. We included wildfire occurrence as a predictor variable in the Maxent model along with 35 climate variables, to predict the future distribution of four indicator species. As per the predictions, there will be a significant reduction in the geographic distribution of the indicator species under the ‘with wildfire’ scenario as compared to the ‘without wildfire’ scenario. The future distribution range was shifted towards the northern and north-eastern regions of our study area owing to higher moisture availability. We predicted reduction in the range of C. deodara during 2030, R. arboreum during 2050, and P. roxburghii during 2080, while the distribution of Q. semecarpifolia remained unchanged. Our modeling predicted that climate change could induce reduction, expansion, and shift in the distributions of endemic plant species, which could lead to alteration in the endemic flora of the Himalayas.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to Dr. PS Roy, Project Director, ‘Biodiversity characterization at landscape level’ project at Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Dehradun, India for providing the field location information on occurrence of four indicator species in the western Himalaya. The authors are thankful to the two anonymous reviewers and the editors of the journal for their comment that has helped us improve the earlier versions of the manuscript.

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The views and interpretations in this publication are those of the authors and are not necessarily attributable to ICIMOD.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Oceans, Rivers, Atmosphere and Land Sciences (CORAL), Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, West Bengal, 721302, India

    Vishwas Chitale & Mukunda Dev Behera

  2. International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), Khumaltar, Lalitpur, Kathmandu, 44700, Nepal

    Vishwas Chitale

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  1. Vishwas Chitale
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Correspondence to Vishwas Chitale.

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Communicated by M.D. Behera, S.K. Behera and S. Sharma.

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Chitale, V., Behera, M.D. How will forest fires impact the distribution of endemic plants in the Himalayan biodiversity hotspot?. Biodivers Conserv 28, 2259–2273 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-019-01733-8

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