Climate Change Impacts and Extinction Risk Assessment of Nepeta Representatives (Lamiaceae) in Greece

Konstantinos Kougioumoutzis, Alexandros Papanikolaou, Ioannis P. Kokkoris, Arne Strid, Panayotis Dimopoulos and Maria Panitsa
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Konstantinos Kougioumoutzis: Laboratory of Botany, Department of Biology, University of Patras, 26504 Patras, Greece
Alexandros Papanikolaou: Laboratory of Botany, Department of Biology, University of Patras, 26504 Patras, Greece
Ioannis P. Kokkoris: Laboratory of Botany, Department of Biology, University of Patras, 26504 Patras, Greece
Arne Strid: Bakkevej 6, DK-5853 Ørbæk, Denmark
Panayotis Dimopoulos: Laboratory of Botany, Department of Biology, University of Patras, 26504 Patras, Greece
Maria Panitsa: Laboratory of Botany, Department of Biology, University of Patras, 26504 Patras, Greece

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 7, 1-15

Abstract: The ongoing climate change has already left its imprint on species distributions, with rare, endemic species being more threatened. These changes are more prominent in regional biodiversity hotspots, such as Greece, which is already facing the short term impacts of human induced climate change. Greek flora hosts numerous endemic medicinal and aromatic plant taxa (MAPs), which are economically important and provide integral ecosystem services. The genus Nepeta is one of the largest Lamiaceae genera, containing several MAPs, yet, despite its taxonomical and economical significance, it remains vastly understudied in Greece. We explore the effects of climate change on the range of the Greek endemic Nepeta MAPs, via a species distribution models (SDMs) approach in an ensemble modeling framework, using soil, topographical and bioclimatic variables as predictors in three different time steps. By doing so, we attempt to estimate the current and future extinction risk of these taxa and to locate their current and future species richness hotspots in Greece. The taxa analyzed are expected to experience severe range retractions, with minor intraspecific variation across all time steps ( p > 0.05), driven mainly by soil- and aridity-related variables. The extinction risk status of only one taxon is predicted to worsen in the future, while all other taxa will remain threatened. Current species richness hotspots are mainly located in southern Greece and are projected to shift both altitudinally and latitudinally over time ( p < 0.01).

Keywords: biodiversity conservation; climate change; ecosystem services; extinction risk; GIS analysis; Greece; Mediterranean; range contraction; species distribution modelling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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