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Abstract Climate change is an important driver of species distribution and biodiversity. Understanding the response of plants to climate change is helpful to understand species differentiation and formulate conservation strategies. The genus Polyspora (Theaceae) has an ancient origin and is widely distributed in subtropical evergreen broad‐leaved forests. Studies on the impacts of climate change on species geographical distribution of Chinese Polyspora can provide an important reference for exploring the responses of plant groups in subtropical evergreen broad‐leaved forests with geological events and climate change in China. Based on the environmental variables, distribution records, and chloroplast genomes, we modeled the potential distribution of Chinese Polyspora in the Last Glacial Maximum, middle Holocene, current, and future by using MaxEnt‐ArcGIS model and molecular phylogenetic method. The changes in the species distribution area, centroid shift, and ecological niche in each periods were analyzed to speculate the response modes of Chinese Polyspora to climate change in different periods. The most important environmental factor affecting the distribution of Polyspora was the precipitation of the driest month, ranging from 13 to 25 mm for the highly suitable habitats. At present, highly suitable distribution areas of Polyspora were mainly located in the south of 25°N, and had species‐specificity. The main glacial refugia of the Chinese Polyspora might be located in the Ailao, Gaoligong, and Dawei Mountains of Yunnan Province. Jinping County, Pingbian County, and the Maguan County at the border of China and Vietnam might be the species differentiation center of the Chinese Polyspora . Moderate climate warming in the future would be beneficial to the survival of P. axillaris , P. chrysandra , and P. speciosa . However, climate warming under different shared socio‐economic pathways would reduce the suitable habitats of P. hainanensis and P. longicarpa .
Fan et al. (Thu,) studied this question.