Potential Global Distribution of the Habitat of Endangered Gentiana rhodantha Franch: Predictions Based on MaxEnt Ecological Niche Modeling

Continued global climate and environmental changes have led to habitat narrowing or migration of medicinal plants. Gentiana rhodantha Franch. ex Hemsl. is a plant for ethnic minorities in China, it has remarkable curative effect the treatment lung-heat cough. However, its gradually decreasing, species been listed as an endangered medicine due excessive harvesting. Here, based on CMIP6 bioclimatic data 117 occurrence records, maximum entropy model (MaxEnt), combined with ArcGIS technology, was applied predict potentially suitable habitats G. under different scenarios. The results showed that most critical variables affecting are precipitation warmest quarter (Bio18) mean temperature coldest (Bio11). highly mainly concentrated Belt Road (“B&R”) countries, including Bhutan, Vietnam. change scenarios, fragmentation extent China will generally increase, area show decreasing trend whole, distribution center shift northeast, distance increase time. Notably, shrinkage high suitability obvious 2081–2100 SSP585 scenario, total 358,385.2 km2. These findings contribute understanding geo-ecological characteristics this species, provide guidelines conservation, management, monitoring, cultivation rhodantha.