Optimizing ecological networks for rare and endangered Plants: An integration of complex network analysis and circuit theory

Rare and endangered plants are irreplaceable "living fossils." They underpin global biodiversity. Yet fragmented policies and static reserves expose most habitats and corridors to rapid climate and land-use change. We present a climate-adaptive framework. It combines MaxEnt models, hotspot detection, circuit-theory connectivity and network optimization. We apply this workflow to Sichuan Province. Here, 89.96 % of ecological sources and 89.41 % of corridors lie outside protected areas. Under SSP126/370/585 scenarios, 31.5 % of today's hotspots will lose that status by 2071-2100. A five-dimensional human disturbance index reveals that corridors face 4.8-fold more moderate-to-high pressure than sources. Guided by these findings, we have designed three ecological network optimization schemes for different future scenarios. All of them have effectively improved the network topology structure indicators and are economically feasible. The framework offers transferable tools for network-oriented governance of rare and endangered plants under rapid global change.