Abstract: Sciaenidae species are one of the traditional economic fishes in China. To understand the potential distribution and the influence of marine environmental factors on their distribution, the MaxEnt model combined with 10 environmental factors was used to predict the potential distribution of 12 Sciaenidae species in the coastal China. The receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) was used to verify the accuracy of the model, while the Jackknife method was used to assess the importance of environmental factors. The potential distributions were mapped and the dominant environmental factors were identified. The results showed that the average AUC value of the model reached 0.943, indicating that the accuracy of the model was good and the results were reliable. Most of the 12 Sciaenidae species are distributed in the Bohai Bay, the south-central Yellow Sea, the Yangtze River estuary, and the coast of Fujian and the Pearl River estuary, with the highest richness of Sciaenidae species appearing in the Pearl River estuary. Dissolved oxygen concentration, offshore distance and primary productivity are the dominant environmental factors driving the potential distribution of Sciaenidae fishes. The genus Pennahia is distributed in coastal China, with the common potential distribution for more than two species being mainly distributed in the south of the Yangtze River estuary, and concentrated in the Taiwan Strait, the coast of Guangdong and the northern Hainan Island. The genus of Johnius is also distributed in coastal China, with the potential distribution of most of the species being in the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the Pearl River Estuary. The common potential distribution for two species of genus Larimichthys are continuously distributed from the south of the Yangtze River estuary to the north of the Minzhong fishing ground, and the sea off the Yangtze River estuary is the most concentrated distribution area. The common potential distribution for the two species of genus Collichthys is distributed in large patchy areas in the south of Lianyungang, Jiangsu and north of the Yangtze River estuary.

Key words: Sciaenidae, MaxEnt model, potential habitat, dominant environmental factor, ecological niche.