Abstract: To explore the potential distribution areas of weeds Aegilops tauschii and Ambrosia artemisiifolia and their potential threats to croplands under future climate change scenarios, we analyzed the global potential distribution areas of Aegilops tauschii and Ambrosia artemisiifolia and the climate factors driving their distribution using Biomod2, an integrated platform of species distribution model. We further evaluated the potential threatened cropland areas in combination with the global distribution of croplands. The results showed that the main factors affecting the distribution of Aegilops tauschii were the minimum temperature of the coldest month and the precipitation of the warmest quarter. The main factors affecting the distribution of Ambrosia artemisiifolia were the precipitation of the driest month and annual mean temperature. The suitable habitat area of Aegilops tauschii decreased under scenarios RCP2.6 and RCP8.5, and that of Ambrosia artemisiifolia increased under scenario RCP8.5. The overlap area between Aegilops tauschii distribution and cropland decreased under scenarios RCP2.6 and RCP8.5, while that between Ambrosia artemisiifolia distribution and cropland increased under scenario RCP8.5. Our results suggested that the distribution area of Aegilops tauschii and the potential threat to cropland will gradually decrease with increasing temperature under climate change. In contrast, the distribution area of Ambrosia artemisiifolia and the potential threat to cropland will increase significantly under the dramatic increase in temperature in the future.

Key words: Aegilops tauschii, Ambrosia artemisiifolia, species distribution, driving factor, cropland