The right tree in the right place: predicting and mapping global-scale suitable areas for Marula tree, Sclerocarya birrea, (A. Rich.) Horchst, subspecies cultivation, conservation, and use in restoring global drylands

Résumé

The marula tree, Sclerocarya birrea (S. birrea) (A. Rich.) Horchst, is native to Africa, used to restore drylands, and introduced outside Africa as a pilot towards commercial cultivation due to its economic potential. However, there is a global paucity of information regarding where subspecies can successfully establish themselves beyond Africa. We aimed to map global-scale suitable areas for S. birrea and its subspecies beyond their native ranges under the current and future warming climates. We modeled and mapped areas by using MaxEnt using occurrence data from Africa and, climatic and topographical environmental variables and, the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology and Hadley Climate Center’s global Earth Systems Models climate data under shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs) greenhouse gas concentrations, SSP3-7.0, for the year 2050 and 2080. The results show that the models’ predictive power was robust, with AUCs ranging from 0.90-0.98. Suitable areas for S. birrea are mainly defined by potential evapotranspiration of the coldest quarter and potential evapotranspiration seasonality; subsp. birrea by continentality and potential evapotranspiration of the coldest quarter; subsp. caffra by isothermality and potential evapotranspiration of the wettest quarter and subsp. multifoliata by temperature seasonality and precipitation of the driest quarter. Currently, suitable areas for S. birrea and its subspecies exist in all continents except Europe and Antarctica and, occupy 3,751,057 km2 to 24,632,452 km2 of earth’s terrestrial area scattered in 54 to 107 countries predominantly in global biomes with climatic conditions ranging from desert tropical to temperate humid. Under future climates, the areas will retract by 64 to 100%, shifting to high latitudes and being limited to tropical desert-to-desert temperate, Mediterranean warm global biomes, and some regions of Eastern Europe will become suitable. Suitable areas for S. birrea and its subspecies exist beyond Africa, and they will retract and migrate to high latitudes under future warming climates.

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