Habitat suitability and areal dynamics of rare desert species of myxomycetes of the genus Didymium under global climate change in Asia

The ability to determine the spatial distribution of rare species is critical to understanding the environmental factors that influence them. Maximum entropy (MaxEnt) modeling of spatial distributions addresses this problem by allowing inferences about species distributions under environmental change from occurrence data. Using this method, we mapped the current and potential geographic distribution of two rare species of desert myxomycetes, Didymium mexicanum and Didymium nullifilum. Models of potential global species distributions were created using bioclimatic data and MaxEnt software to model species habitat suitability under current conditions (~1950–2000) and under projected changes in future climate (2100 AD) based on 18 spatial distribution points for D. mexicanum and 4 points for D. nullifilum. A detailed morphological description is given for the species. We identified the species D. mexicanum for the first time in Asia.