Predicting the potential distribution of a critically endangered medicinal plant Lilium polyphyllum in Indian Western Himalayan Region

Climate change presents a serious threat to endangered plant species within a restricted habitat. Lilium polyphyllum D.Don ex Royle is a species indigenous to the coniferous forests of the Western Himalaya. However, over exploitation, due to its high medicinal properties and demands of industry, has resulted in a steep decline of its natural habitats. Consequently, the species is listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List. The present study was carried out in the Western Himalayan region using the maximum entropy model (MaxEnt) to predict the potential distribution of L. polyphyllum in respect of IPCC future climatic scenarios. The modeling used mutually least correlated bioclimatic variables and topographic data over 53 occurrence locations. Future scenarios include IPCC Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 2.6 and 8.5 (representing less harmful and harsh climatic conditions) for the years 2050 and 2070. The main predictor variables contributing to the habitat are the precipitation of the driest month (52.7%), elevation (13.9%) and temperature seasonality (7.8%). Current potential habitats for L. polyphyllum have been located in the north-west and south-east regions of the Western Himalaya. Future climate change scenarios predict that the potential habitats of this species will shrink by 38–81% in these regions and moreover the habitats will shift towards the south-east, making Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand state of India as favourable habitats in the future. These findings assist in the identification of the potential conservation areas and provision of protection against climate change.