Identification of potential distribution area for the sweet cherry (Prunus avium) by the MaxEnt model

The potential distribution of species offers important information for species management, especially for fruit trees with economic value. The sweet cherry is a tree species with higher economic value among deciduous fruit trees in north China. Herein, its potential distributions were modeled under current conditions. The performances of this model were excellent with AUCs of >0.9 for model training and testing. The key factors identified were the thermal factors (min temperature of coldest month (bio06) from -14.5 to 4.5{degrees}C, the mean temperature of warmest quarter (bio10) from 21.0 to 28.0{degrees}C), followed by water factor (the annual precipitation (bio12) from 500 to 1200 mm). Its suitable region in China mainly is located on 6 geographical regions including southwest China (eastern Sichuan, northeast and main urban areas of Chongqing, mid-western Guizhou and mid-northern Yunnan), northwest China (mid-southern Shaanxi, southern Ningxia mid-southern and eastern Gansu), northeast China (Coastal region of Liaoning), central China (most of Henan, mid-northern Hubei and central Hunan), north China (Beijing, Tianjing, mid-southern Shanxi), east China (Shanghai, Jiangsu, Shandong, central Zhejiang, central and northern Anhui and eastern Jiangxi) and south China (western Guangxi). Relative to their actual distributions, Hubei, Hunan and Anhui etc have been identified to have some potentially suitable areas for these sweet cherries. Among them, these 9 provinces or cities (Shaanxi, Beijing, Tianjing, Shanxi, Hebei, Henan, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Shandong) are main regions for its current development and utilization, followed by Sichuan, Guizhou,Yunnan, Gansu, Liaoning, Hubei, Zhejiang and Guangxi etc. The results can be adopted to identify the suitable areas for its introduction and cultivation to avoid the losses of human labor, material and financial resources due to improper decision, and to provide a scientific basis for its current introduction, cultivation and management.