Predicting the potential current distribution of the near-endemic Centaurea glomerata Vahl. in Egypt

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Botany Department, Faculty of Science, Mansoura University, Mansoura 35516, Egypt

Abstract

Different threats to endemic vascular plants have been recognized in the Mediterranean region. For Egypt, the threats to endemic vascular plants along the northern Mediterranean coast include their limited population size, low genetic diversity, habitat specificity, extensive man-made impacts, and climate change. Centaurea glomerata Vahl.is an annual, herbaceous plant, near endemic endangered species, distributed along the Mediterranean coast regions of Egypt and Libya. Using 50 georefernced occurences and 19 bioclimatic factors in MaxEnt, the potential current distribution of C. glomerata in Egypt was predicted. The models demonstrated high prediction performance with high value of AUC (0.989± 0.001). The main predictors that exhibited the highest contributions were precipitation seasonality, precipitation of  coldest quarter and mean  diurnal range. The current anticipated locations match the C. glomerata  where requirements precipitation seasonality range from 70 to 130, mean diurnal range from 7.4 to 17°C and precipitation of  coldest  quarter range from 20 to 90 mm. The outputs of the models revealed that the most suitable sites for the growth of C. glomerata along the western Mediterranean coast of Egypt are El-Agamy and Sidi Krir sites. The awareness and research activities as well as in-situ conservation must be raised to reduce threats of C. glomerata in the wild.

Keywords

Mansoura Journal of Biology
Volume 63, Issue 2
June 2023
Pages 59-66

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