Change of geographic distributions of the genus Morchella species responding to climate oscillations in East Asia.

is a rare macrofungi taxon with high medicinal and edible values. Influenced by recent climate oscillations and human activities, habitat fragmentation of this genus has been critical, leading to a rapid decline of the resource of . It is thus urgent to preserve species. Based on maximum entropy model (MaxEnt), and 102 geographic distribution records of species with 10 environmental factors, we simulated the changes of potential geographic distributions under the climatic conditions of the last glacial maximum (LGM), last interglacial (LIG), in contemporary period and future (2050, 2070). We further analyzed the potential changes of geographic distributions of species in East Asia under climate change and formulated the effective conservation strategies for . The results showed that the dominant environmental factors affecting the geographic distributions of species were mean temperature of coldest quarter, annual precipitation, elevation and temperature annual range, with the mean temperature of coldest quarter having the greatest contribution. Results of the species distribution models showed that the highly suitable regions for species were mainly distributed in parts of western China under contemporary period. From the LIG to LGM and then the current to the future period, the total suitable regions of species showed a trend of firstly decrease and then increase, while the highly suitable regions showed similar change with the total suitable regions. At present, there is an urgent need to conduct conservation for the resources of species in highly suitable regions in western China, and to carry out conservation in the marginal ranges of highly suitable regions and moderately suitable regions of Shaanxi, Hebei, Shandong, and other regions in China.