Revealing the long-term trend of the global-scale Ginkgo biloba distribution and the impact of future climate change based on the ensemble modeling

Rational conservation of endangered plants is often challenging. Ginkgo biloba L., a relict plant in the Mesozoic, is known as the world’s famous “living fossil”. To rationally protect G. biloba, we constructed an ensemble model (EM) to predict the past, present, and future suitable habitats of G. biloba based on global sampling sites and climate, soil and terrain data. The present results show that the suitable habitats for G. biloba are mainly concentrated in East Asia, Europe, and North America. Through the analysis of key environmental variables, climate has a high degree of influence on the growth and distribution of G. biloba, and the effect of temperature is four times that of precipitation. By simulating the past distribution of G. biloba, we found that glacial refuges were concentrated in East Asia, including China, Korea, and Japan. This is due to Quaternary glaciation, G. biloba in the past has been extinct in Europe and North America, only surviving in East Asia. Under future climate change, the habitat area of G. biloba will gradually decrease and has a tendency to migrate to higher latitudes. By analyzing the expansion and contraction range of G. biloba, we found that the suitable area in Asia will be relatively stable, while those in North America and Europe tend to be fragmented. The habitat fragmentation will threaten the distribution range of G. biloba, thereby reducing species diversity. The results of this study will provide conservation recommendations for in-situ conservation and off-site preservation methods for G. biloba.