Over 8,000 species of Lamiaceae plants are widely distributed
globally and often endemic to specific regions, with a significant
proportion of monotypic and oligotypic genera among the 226 genera
(wcvp). Elsholtzia eriostachya, Eriophyton wallichii,Marmoritis complanata and Phlomoides rotata are four
Lamiaceae herbs endemic to the Third Pole. They are concentrated in the
HHM’s alpine regions above 4,000 meters a.s.l. and have historically
been collected as traditional medicinal herbs. Currently, these species
are under threat from climate change and human activities. However,
their medicinal properties have been widely studied, but few studies
have addressed how their distribution changes in response to future
climate warming, which is the focus of this study.
In order to evaluate the importance of environmental variables
in shaping species distributions and to predict changes in species
distributions in response to future climate changes, Ecological Niche
Modelling (ENM) has been widely used and become a standard tool for
ecologists and conservation biologists (Peterson & Vieglais, 2001).