Biodiversity Conservation Planning for South Korea: Predicting Plant Biodiversity Dynamics under Climate Change and the Impacts from Forest Conversion Scenarios

This dissertation is an exploration of the spatial dynamics of plant biodiversity patterns in South Korea under various climate change and forest land-use scenarios. The four chapters build upon each other and present development of methods for species distribution modeling for use with insufficient species' occurrence data resources. I use the MARS multi-response species distribution model to portray shifts in plant species richness under climate change. The first chapter compares and tests threshold options to transform continuous species occurrence probabilities from MARS into presence or absence maps, and identifies the spatial patterns of high species richness by assessing combined range maps. The second chapter uses a larger plant species database of occurrence records to model the spatial patterns of high species richness, evaluates the biodiversity representation within current protected areas, and suggests the directions for designating additional protected areas. The third chapter estimates shifts in the spatial patterns of plant biodiversity under climate change and calculates the spatial vulnerability of major geographic groups of plants using three components - exposure, spatial disruption, and dispersal pressure. I propose climate dispersal corridors for climate vulnerable species groups. The final chapter estimates the impacts of climate change and policy on the plant biodiversity of forested areas by exploring the spatial results of different scenario-based land use and climate models, and suggests options for forest policy and plant conservation strategies.