Predicting habitat suitability of Litsea glutinosa: a declining tree species, under the current and future climate change scenarios in India

Litsea glutinosa (Lour.) C.B.Rob., an evergreen tree with significant ecological and medicinal value, has seen its distribution gradually decline due to unsustainable harvesting, overexploitation, and climate change. Habitat suitability modelling can be an effective tool for the conservation and management of L. glutinosa. This study aims to predict L. glutinosa habitat suitability in India under current and future climate change scenarios. Our study identified the important predictors that affect L. glutinosa distribution. In addition, the L. glutinosa habitat suitability area and its percent difference in the current and future were assessed, and potential conservation sites were identified. This study is based on the widely used maximum entropy (MaxEnt) species distribution model (SDM). We used current and future modelled data of the sixth version of the Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate (MIROC6) from Coupled Model Intercomparison Projects (CMIP6) Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5) emission scenarios for the period (2030s, 2050s and 2070s). Results demonstrated that the MaxEnt performance is good with an area under the receiver operator characteristic (AUC/ROC) curve of 0.852. L. glutinosa distribution is most influenced by the mean diurnal range (Bio2), contributing 55.1%. Notably, under high emissions and warmer climates of the SSP5-8.5 scenario, the suitable habitat of L. glutinosa would tend to increase. Under the SSP5-8.5 scenario, the maximum area of excellent habitat is 0.298 M km2. The study identified the sub-Himalayan region, the central-eastern region, the northeastern ranges, and the western ghats as candidate areas for species conservation.