Abstract

PALACIOS ROMERO, Abraham et al. Potential distribution of Prosopis laevigata (Humb. et Bonpl. ex Willd) M. C. Johnston based on an ecological niche model. Rev. mex. de cienc. forestales [online]. 2016, vol.7, n.34, pp.35-46. ISSN 2007-1132.

Prosopis laevigata is a widely distributed species in arid zones of northern and central Mexico. It is very useful from the environmental point of view, as it prevents desertification and erosion processes due to its high soil-holding capacity, as well as its capacity to improve fertility and to stabilize salinity levels. It is a source of food and provides shelter to wildlife; furthermore, various goods for consumption by human beings are produced from this species, so it has been overexploited for decades in Mexico. Therefore, it has become necessary to determine potential areas for its establishment. For this purpose, the potential distribution of this species in three physiographic provinces was studied. Spatial data on sightings recorded in the World Network of Information on Biodiversity (REMIB, for its acronym in Spanish), and with the BIOCLIM ecological niche model were selected and applied with the DIVA-GIS 7.5 software. They were validated with an analysis of the area under the ROC curve and using the Kappa estimator. The results suggest that P. laevigata can grow optimally in 15 % of the provinces (70 632.08 km2), and that the most limiting factors it faces are the seasonality of precipitation (9.25 %) and the temperature (11.43 %). Both the ROC analysis and Kappa indicate that the utilized model has an excellent performance and a high probability of accuracy (ROC = 0.973; Kappa = 0.915); therefore, these formulas are adequate to determine potential areas for the development of this species.

Keywords : BIOCLIM; spatial distribution; mesquite; ecological niche; Prosopis laevigata (Humb. et Bonpl. ex Willd) M. C. Johnston; reforestation.

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