Abstract: Abies ziyuanensis, a rare and endangered species endemic to China, has fragile habitats and poor growth due to global climate change. We analyzed the impacts of climate change on the geographical distribution of this species, aiming to provide a theoretical basis for the population protection and reintroduction in the context of global climate change. The maximum entropy model (MaxEnt 3.4.4) and geographic information system (ArcGIS 10.2) were used to simulate three climate scenarios in the two future periods considering the existing geographical distribution data and environmental variables of A. ziyuanensis, aiming to predict potential distribution area and changes. The results showed that the MaxEnt model had high prediction accuracy, with AUC value of 0.998. Under the current climate scenario, the junction of northwest Fujian and Jiangxi, and the alpine region in the north-central part of Taiwan were the most suitable habitat areas for A. ziyuanensis, in addition to the current distribution areas of Guangxi, Hunan and Jiangxi. The main climatic factors suitable for its growth include precipitation of coldest quarter, isothermality, precipitation of driest month and mean temperature of wettest season, which range from 231.99-433.06 mm, ≤21.8%, 50.38-83.57 mm and 10.6-20.5 ℃, respectively, with the peak values being 331.11 mm, 21.8%, 67.19 mm and 15.6 ℃. In the future climate scenario, total suitable area of A. ziyuanensis will be generally expanded. Under the SSP126 scenario, the total suitable area will become the largest in 2021-2040, which will be about 244,700 km² and increase by 63.7% compared with that under current climate scenario. In the scenarios of SSP126 and SSP585, the highly suitable area will obviously shrink, while the moderately and lowly suitable areas will show an expansion trend.

Key words: Abies ziyuanensis, rare and endangered plant, maximum entropy model, suitable area