Potential regions for Argan tree plantations in Algeria using MaxEnt bioclimatic modelling

ABSTRACT

The present study models potential regions for Argan tree plantations in Algeria using the MaxEnt approach, taking into account the sites of successful plantations at national level. There has been exhaustive sampling of 45 sites of plantations, with results collected over three years, 2021, 2022 and 2023. Current climate data were used from the Worldclim database (version 2.0). The results obtained indicate that the north-western regions of the country, the eastern and central coasts, are highly suitable (≥75%), but the desert and steppe regions are weakly suitable (<25%). Therefore, a suitable bioclimatic environment for planting argan trees (with at least 50% probability) depends on a minimum temperature of 2.5 to 6.5°C and annual precipitation of 160 to 1,400 mm.

KEYWORDS:

• Argan tree
• climate modelling
• MaxEnt
• plantation
• Algeria

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.