Abstract: Artemisia tanacetifolia, A. sieversiana and A. argyi are three commonArtemisiaspecies distributed over China. We used MaxEnt model with ROC (receiver operating characteristic curve) for accuracy test to predict the potential distribution of those three Artemisiaspecies under current climate and two future scenarios. The AUC (area under curve values of both training and testing data were above 0.8, indicating good reliability of the prediction. Under the present climatic condition, the areas with the highest occurrence probability of A. tanacetifoliawere mainly distributed in Loess Plateau, Inner Mongolian Plateau, and Northeast China Plain. The most suitable areas of A. sieversiana were distributed in southern Tibet valley, Hengduan Mountains area, Loess Plateau, Inner Mongolian Plateau, and Northeast China Plain. There are two optimal distribution areas of A. argyi: one in the south of Taiwan Island and another consisting of Dabashan Mountain, Wushan Mountain, northern Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, Loess Plateau and southern Northeast China Plain. Under the scenarios of RCP2.6 and RCP8.5 in 2070,the areas of high suitability of A. tanacetifolia and A. sieversiana will decrease but the optimum distribution area ofA. argyi will increase. Results of the Jackknife test showed that mean annual precipitation was the most effective climatic factor in predictingA. tanacetifolia’s distribution, May precipitation was the most significant factor for A. sieversiana, and August water vapor pressure was the most influencing factor for A. argyi. Our results provide scientific basis for the rational utilization of Artemisia species.

Key words: Artemisia tanacetifolia, Artemisia sieversiana, Artemisia argyi, species distribution models (SDMs), maximum entropy model (MaxEnt), habitat suitability, climatic factor.