Projected Distribution of Five Invasive Ipomoea Species in China Under Climate Change

In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to the influence of climate change on the distribution and spread of invasive species. However, projections of the future distributions of invasive Ipomoea species remain limited, despite their strong reproductive capacity, ecological adaptability, and competitive ability. In this study, 34 environmental variables were initially considered, and highly correlated variables were removed before fitting Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) models, with model settings selected according to species-specific sample sizes, to predict the potential distributions of five invasive Ipomoea species (Ipomoea nil, Ipomoea purpurea, Ipomoea quamoclit, Ipomoea lacunosa, and Ipomoea alba) across China under current and future climate scenarios (SSP126, SSP370, and SSP585). Model performance and the contributions of environmental variables were evaluated, and changes in suitable areas and distribution centroids were compared among climate scenarios. All five models showed high predictive performance, with AUC values exceeding 0.9. Snow cover days (SCD) was the main predictor for I. nil and I. purpurea, while Bio9, elevation, and Bio11 were the dominant predictors for I. quamoclit, I. lacunosa, and I. alba, respectively. Compared with the baseline climate period (1981–2010), suitable areas for all five species were projected to expand under future climate scenarios, with varying shifts in distribution centroids. These results indicate that climate warming may increase the potential invasion risk and ecological impacts of invasive Ipomoea species in China, highlighting the need for strengthened monitoring and management to support biodiversity conservation.