ORIGINAL RESEARCH
How do Environmental Variables Affect
the Suitable Habitat of Medicinal Plants?
A Case Study of Citrus medica L. var. sarcodactylis
Swingle in China
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1
School of Food and Bioengineering, Chengdu University, Chengdu 610106, PR China
2
Fushun County Meteorological Bureau, Fushun 643200, Sichuan, China
3
Sichuan Provincial Key Laboratory of Quality and Innovation Research of Chinese Materia Medica, Sichuan Academy
of Traditional Chinese Medicine Sciences, Chengdu 610041, PR China
4
Water-Saving Agriculture in Southern Hill Area Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Chengdu 610066,
Sichuan, PR China
5
Sichuan Provincial Rural Economic Information Center, Chengdu 610072, Sichuan, China
Submission date: 2022-10-17
Final revision date: 2023-01-11
Acceptance date: 2023-01-26
Online publication date: 2023-02-27
Publication date: 2023-04-14
Corresponding author
Rulin Wang
Water-Saving Agriculture in Southern Hill Area Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, China
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2023;32(3):2383-2391
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
Citrus medica L. var. sarcodactylis Swingle (Rutaceae: Citrus) is one of the traditional bulk Chinese
medicinal materials in China with the effects of bacteriostasis, anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidation,
anti-cancer cells, regulating the immun. In our paper, MaxEnt and ArcGIS were applied to simulate
the suitable areas of C. medica L. var. sarcodactylis in China from the perspectives of bioclimate,
soil, topographic factors and human activities Results showed that 1) temperature annual range (Bio7),
annual precipitation (Bio12), human footprint (Hf), elevation (El) and precipitation seasonality (Bio15)
were identified as the dominant environmental variables related to the distribution of C. medica L.
var. sarcodactylis. The area of the total, most, moderately and poorly suitable habitat of C. medica L.
var. sarcodactylis in China were 177.36×104 km2, 22.27×104 km2, 51.96×104 km2 and 103.13×104 km2
respectively. The range of the most suitable habitat was the narrowest, which was located in the middle
east of Sichuan, western Chongqing in the upstream of the Yangtze River Basin, southern Guizhou and
western Guangxi in the upstream of the Pearl River Basin, central and southern Yunnan and Southeast
Tibet in the Middle-Lower reaches of the Southwest River Basin and western Taiwan.