Climate change-driven threats to Taxus L. survival and strategies for sustainable Taxol resource management

Abstract

The Taxus L. is the only medicinal plant that can naturally synthesize Taxol, which has an irreplaceable role in human health and is of great economic value. However, it faces the dual challenges of habitat loss and uncertain medicinal quality under future climate change. Therefore, we used the Stacked Species Distribution Model (SSDM) to predict the impact of climate change on suitable habitats of Taxus L. in China, and analyzed the relationship between Taxol content and environmental factors in combination with Multi-Model Inference (MuMIn) to establish high-quality wild tending areas (WTA) and wild reserve areas (WRA) for Taxus L. The results showed that the high-suitability habitats of Taxus L. decreased by 47 %, especially in the northeast and southeast China, mainly affected by extreme cold and extreme drought. However, the high-quality areas of Taxol content showed an increasing trend of southward expansion and northward contraction, especially in southwest and south China. Taxol content positively correlated with driest monthly precipitation and porosity, and negatively correlated with wettest quarter precipitation and temperature annual range. The combined superimposed analysis of the high-quality areas of Taxol content and the high-suitability habitats of Taxus L. identified WTA in southeastern China (the area from northern Guangxi to northern Fujian) and WRA in southwestern China (the area of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau and the mountain range around the Sichuan Basin). These results provide a dual perspective framework for implementing conservation strategies for endangered species and developing sustainable harvesting strategies for wild medicinal resources.