Abstract
Aim: Artemisia annua L. is the one and only original
plant used to isolate artemisinin which is a highly effective remedy to
fight malaria. Climate change leads to change of distribution and
suitable range for many species and A. annua is no exception.
However, it is not clear that the potential distribution and suitable
range change of this unique plant under climate change. Therefore, we
present this research to study its change in the future.
Location: Global.
Methods: Since the accuracy of species distribution models was
affected by occurrence records and environmental variables, 1062
presence records and seven variables were picked out to build ensemble
models with 10 different algorithms by means of biomod2 under current
and future climate scenarios.
Results: At present, except SRE, the AUC values of the
rest models were greater than 0.8, and the TSS values were greater than
0.6, the values of ensemble model were 0.971 and 0.839 respectively.
Mean temperature of driest quarter was the dominant factor to shape the
range of A. annua and its optimum interval ranged from 4.8 to
23.3ÂșC. The high suitable habitats of A. annua were mainly
located in Eastern Asia, Western Europe, Central Europe. In the future,
the high suitable area would decline at 15.55% to 25.87%.
Main conclusions: Ensemble models showed it performed better
than any the single one. At present, the high suitable habitat simulated
by ensemble model was in accordance with the actual occurrence records.
In the future, the high suitable habitat for A. annua would move
northeast, and disappear in North America. They would increase with time
under each SSP, but sharply decline while comparing with the current
one. This study can be used to protect wild resource and guide
cultivation for A. annua , which would make modest contribution to
fight malaria.