MaxEnt Modeling and ArcGIS for Predicting the Potential Distribution of Pistia stratiotes L. in Yunnan Province

Purpose In order to provide the theoretical evidence for supervising and controlling the alien invasive aquatic plant Pistia stratiotes L., the potential suitable area of P. stratiotes of Yunnan in China was predicted.

Method The MaxEnt modeling and ArcGIS was used for the predicting, based on the presence occurrence data of the species and the environmental data, such as 7 climatic factors and 4 topographic factors. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used for verifying the modeling and the influence of environmental variables on the distribution of P. stratiotes was analyzed with Jackknife test.

Result The suitable area of P. stratiotes in Yunnan Province is about 13.56×10⁴ km², and mainly concentrated in central and southern Yunnan, especially in the habitat such as nutrient enriched waters, marshes, ditches and paddy field area and so on. The AUC of ROC curve is 0.907. And the main environmental factors that determine the potential distribution are mean temperature of coldest quarter, altitude and land use type.

Conclusion The potential suitable area of P. stratiotes in Yunnan is large, accounting for more than 30% of the land area of Yunnan.