Will Ferulago glareosa Kandemir and Hedge (Apiaceae) be extinct in the near future?

Abstract

Turkey is one of the most important temperate countries on Earth in terms of plant diversity. There is a growing interestin understanding habitat suitability and future distributions of species in the scientific world. Because climate change has impactedecosystems with major consequences, species are shifting and declining much faster than in the past. Some global climate models usedfor predicting climate in the future better represent and have higher reliability for some climate types. Ferulago glareosa, which livesin Turkey, is a rare endemic plant species. In this study, we investigated current and future distributions of the species determinedto be habitat-specific to lead to future studies on conservation. The Maxent model was used to map the current and future potentialdistribution of the species for Turkey. HadGEM2-ES and MPI-ESM-LR global climate models based on predicted future suitability of F.glareosa for 2050 and 2070 were examined. Models were constructed based on 20 presence points of the species and 2 abiotic variables.The current species distribution modeling of Ferulago glareosa predicted by the model produced very high success rates with trainingand test AUC values of 0.970 and 0.968, respectively. The true skill statistics value of the model (0.8245) indicated excellent modelperformance. In the end, we have demonstrated how predictions obtained from a highly reliable global climate model for a region’sclimate could provide more dependable insights into the future distribution of narrow-spread endemic species.