SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION SHIFTS OF LITHOSPERMUM ERYTHRORHIZON (BORAGINACEAE), A RARE MEDICINAL PLANT IN CHINA, UNDER FUTURE CLIMATE SCENARIOS

Lithospermum erythrorhizon, a second-level protected wild plant in China, faces population decline and extinction risk due to medicinal overexploitation.This study integrates 209 distribution points and 37 environmental variables using Pearson correlation, MaxEnt modeling, and ArcGIS to identify key distribution drivers and project spatial shifts under current/future climates.Results show dominant factors include annual precipitation (570.5~1497.4mm), annual mean temperature (9.2~18.4C),coldest quarter precipitation (21.3~190.2mm), wettest quarter precipitation (347.4~692.0mm), and mean diurnal range (7.1~11.0C).The high-accuracy MaxEnt model (AUC > 0.8) indicates current suitable habitats (403.09 10 km) concentrate in central/eastern Guizhou, Qinling-Daba Mountains, northwestern Hubei, and parts of northern China.Future projections reveal habitat expansion with southwestward migration to higher elevations: under SSP126, the centroid shifts southwest 820.16 km then northeast 134.25 km; under SSP585, it shifts southwest 865.98 km then southeast 46.41 km.This latitudinal gradient response mechanism provides critical environmental thresholds for cultivation site selection.The proposed habitat optimization strategy balances ecological protection and economic benefits through wild resource substitution while ensuring cultivated medicinal quality stability, supporting medicinal plant diversity conservation and sustainable utilization.