[Studies on habitats suitability of endangered medicinal plant Notopterygium incisum]

To assess the suitability of origin habitats of Notopterygium incisum, and provide theoretical basis of screening suitable areas for its large-scale cultivation.

Detailed field survey of N. incisum, spatial databases, and GIS technology were used for the habitats suitability assessment.

More than 142 073 km2 in 118 counties of Sichuan, Tibetan, Qinghai and Gansu are the most suitable habitats for N. incisum in which more than 47% of the area is located in sichuan, and more than of 377 000 km2 in 266 counties are relative suitable for N. incisum in Sichuan, Tibetan, Qinghai, Gansu, Yunnan, Xinjiang, etc and 32% of the area is located in Sichuan.

Almost all the most suitable habitats are appropriate for germplasm conservation, wild population protection and regeneration due to the shortage of arable land, fragmentation of these alpine and subalpine ecosystems and sensitiveness of the environment changes. Therefore, large-scale cultivation of N. incisum could be developed in those relative suitable areas abundant in arable lands and labors, especially in moutainous regions with high elevation in the west of Sichuan province, and Qinghai Tibet plateau in the northwest of Sichuan, Southeast of Qinghai and Gansu province.