Semi-arid African savanna habitat suitability for two Vachellia species

The habitat suitability of Vachellia stuhlmannii and Vachellia tortilis was assessed using Maximum Entropy model. Location data was collected and nineteen bioclimatic variables data for 1950 to 2000 downloaded from the WorldClim database. Soils were analyzed to investigate their influence on habitat suitability of the two species. MaxEnt effectively predicted current habitat suitability with an average test Area Under Curve value of 0.936 for V. stuhlmannii and 0.689 for V. tortilis. Key influential variables were BIO-1 (Annual mean temperature) with 71.7% highest gain for V. stuhlmannii and BIO-17 (Precipitation of driest quarter) with 65.3% highest gain for V. tortilis. However, BIO-14 (Precipitation of driest month) exhibited limited influence in predicting habitat suitability for both species. V. stuhlmannii occupies twenty-nine hectares and V. tortilis covers 102 hectares. Both species predominantly occur on Prismacutanic/pedocutanic B-horizons. V. tortilis also thrive on Glenrosa ...