Period wise future distribution and range-shift estimation using shared socioeconomic pathways on Taxus wallichiana medicinal plant

Abstract The threats of extinction and loss of diversity of Himalayan medicinal plants have been accelerated since decades due to global climate change associated with anthropogenic pressure. Such a flora, Taxus wallichina is facing regional extinction due to over-exploitation for its superb utility in various medicinal and non-medicinal trading purposes. The assessment of the impact of climate change on the suitability of ecological habitats of this climate-sensitive species is of utmost importance. The new generation climate model, CMIP6, provides us with different plausible future climatic scenarios driven by shared socio-economic pathways for different future periods. Through the implementation of ensemble species’ distribution modelling, we assess the probabilistic niche distribution of Taxus wallichina under current and different future climatic scenarios. A precise wide-range spatial-temporal assessment of suitable niche distribution leads us to the identification of potential regions for conservation of the species to facilitate their sustainability. A detailed time frame estimation in the niche distribution assists the identification of any retrieval or consistent declination in habitat suitability of a particular zone. The target species featuring its potential distribution in the zones of ample precipitation and cooler monsoon is observed to show drastically different range-shifts under different projection pathways. The present study reveals that the habitat suitability assessment should be carried out time to time under all possible socio-economic projection pathways to update the conservation policies in future.