Modeling habitat suitability of Houttuynia cordata Thunb (Ceercao) using MaxEnt under climate change in China

Houttuynia cordata Thunb is an important medicinal and edible plant widely distributed in East Asia. To understand the potential distribution characteristics of H. cordata and its response to future climatic change, the Maxent model is used to simulate potential distribution under current climatic condition, and predict changes in its distribution under three different future climate scenarios, and analyze the dominant factors affecting its distribution. The results showed that the suitable habitat area of H. cordata at present is 177.45 × 104 km2, among which the high suitable area is 26.66 × 104 km2, mainly distributed in Guizhou, eastern Sichuan, northwest Guangxi and Chongqing, west Hunan and southeast Hubei. The current distribution of H. cordata is mainly affected by the annual precipitation (bio12, 57.4% contribution rate), min. Temperature of coldest month (bio6, 26% contribution rate) and standard deviation of temperature seasonality (bio4, 6.1% contribution rate), and its total contribution rate is 89.5%. The suitable regional area of H. cordata showed an increasing trend under three climate change scenarios (SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP5-8.5) in both the 2050s and 2070s, and its suitable distribution area extended to the north as a whole. The simulation results are helpful to understand the geoecological characteristics of H. cordata, and provide a basis for the regional prediction of this species under current and future climate change scenarios in China.