Predicting the habitat distribution of rubber plantations with topography, soil, land use, and climatic factors
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Predicting the habitat distribution of rubber plantations with topography, soil, land use, and climatic factors Selvaraj Selvalakshmi & Remya Kottarathu Kalarikkal & Xiaodong Yang
Received: 3 May 2020 / Accepted: 20 August 2020 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Commercial demand is the prerequisite for the expansion of rubber plantation, which is highly dependent on climate, topography, and soil factors. Without the contextual knowledge on these factors, the expansion of rubber plantation would remain unproductive. This study thereby aimed to evaluate the current and future suitable habitat distributions of rubber using maximum entropy (MaxEnt) species distribution model in Xishuangbanna, Southwest China. A total of 148 field-based presence locations and environmental variables (soil, bioclimatic, topography, and land use) were used to predict the suitable areas of rubber plantations using HadGEM2-ES climate model. Medium and high climatic representative concentration pathways (RCPs) (4.5 and 8.5) were selected to predict the suitable habitats for the years 2050 and 2070. Among various factors, annual mean temperature, annual precipitation, Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-020-08563-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. S. Selvalakshmi : X. Yang (*) CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mengla 666303 Yunnan, China e-mail: [email protected] R. K. Kalarikkal Biology Department, College of Science, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain 15551, UAE X. Yang Plant Ecology, Core Botanical Gardens, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mengla 666303 Yunnan, China
precipitation of wettest month, precipitation seasonality, precipitation of warmest quarter, and soil exchangeable H+ contributed significantly to the distribution of rubber. Currently, 1119 km2 and 2716 km2 were predicted as high and moderately suitable areas respectively. It is predicted with increase rates in the high suitable areas, 49.96% and 328.95% by 2050 and 2070 respectively under RCP 4.5. This result indicates that the medium climate change of RCP 4.5 may have a direct positive effect on the expansion of habitat suitability of rubber. We also found potential areas for rubber cultivation in Jinghong and Mengla townships, where the further expansion is anticipated with desirable land-use planning by conserving reserve forest and native vegetation. Keywords Rubber plantation . MaxEnt . Habitat suitability . Climate change . Conservation
Introduction Natural rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) is an evergreen tree species from the Amazon basin. Rubber plantation originally distributed between 10° N and 10° S in the equatorial regions (Priyadarshan et al. 2005) and later extended to south Asian countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and India. China ranks fifth with about 120% increment in rubber production from 1994 to 2018 (FAO 2020). The Chinese governme
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