Adaptive Management Based on the Habitat Change of <i>Cibotium barometz</i> Under Synergistic Impact of Climate and Land Use Change—A Case Study of Guangxi, China

With the rapidly growing demand for medicinal plants globally, the wild medicinal plant population is experiencing a sharp decline. Climate and land use change are two significant forces affecting biodiversity. Climate change impact assessment without changes in land use should mischaracterize medicinal plants' vulnerability and spatiotemporal distribution. Previous research on medicinal plants' potential distribution area by species distribution model (SDM) has focused more on their ecological suitability. However, whether the land-use types within the suitable distribution area (SDA) meet the species' survival requirements is often overlooked. These imbalances place significant limitations upon the ability to guide anticipative conservation and sustainable utilization actions and weigh the future outcomes of different policy or management options. <i>Cibotium barometz</i> is a highly demanded medicinal plant listed as national key protected wild plant in China. For adaptive management, we assessed the suitable habitat change of <i>C. barometz</i> in Guangxi under the synergistic impact of climate and land use change by maximum entropy (MaxEnt) and patch-generating land use simulation (PLUS) models between 2020 and 2040 under three Shared socio-economic pathways and proposed adaptive management countermeasure. Results indicate that climate change accelerates the loss of <i>C. barometz</i>'s habitat;SDA and suitable habitat show a decreasing trend; the total area of suitable habitat is decreasing, but the suitability degree is increasing. Altitude and Precipitation of Warmest Quarter are key environmental variables for <i>C. barometz</i> distribution; SDA shows a southwest-northeast shift, and the average elevation is rising. The areas of cropland, forest, shrub, grassland, and barren that meet <i>C. barometz</i>'s survival requirements are decreasing, and water and impervious surfaces are increasing. We propose an adaptive response to wild resource conservation based on the protected area system in southwestern Guangxi in parallel with artificial cultivation in northeastern Guangxi. The study aims to provide insights into the sustainable utilization of medicinal plants.