Climate suitability predictions for the cultivation of macadamia (Macadamia integrifolia) in Malawi using climate change scenarios

RESEARCH ARTICLE Climate suitability predictions for the cultivation of macadamia (Macadamia integrifolia) in Malawi using climate change scenarios Emmanuel Junior ZuzaID1*, Kadmiel Maseyk1, Shonil A. Bhagwat2, Kauê de Sousa3,4, Andrew Emmott5, William Rawes5, Yoseph Negusse Araya1 1 Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics, School of Environment, Earth and Ecosystem Sciences, The Open University, Milton Keynes, The United Kingdom, 2 Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, School of Social Sciences and Global Studies, The Open University, Milton Keynes, The United Kingdom, 3 Faculty of Applied Ecology, Agricultural Sciences and Biotechnology Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Department of Agricultural Sciences, Hamar, Norway, 4 Digital Inclusion Area, Biodiversity International, Maccarese, Italy, 5 The Neno Macadamia Trust, Bedford, The United Kingdom * Emmanuel.Zuza@open.ac.uk Abstract Climate change is altering suitable areas of crop species worldwide, with cascading effects on people reliant upon those crop species as food sources and for income generation. Mac- adamia is one of Malawi’s most important and profitable crop species; however, climate change threatens its production. Thus, this study’s objective is to quantitatively examine the potential impacts of climate change on the climate suitability for macadamia in Malawi. We utilized an ensemble model approach to predict the current and future (2050s) suitability of macadamia under two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). We achieved a

good model fit in determining suitability classes for macadamia (AUC = 0.9). The climatic variables that strongly influence macadamia’s climatic suitability in Malawi are suggested to be the precipitation of the driest month (29.1%) and isothermality (17.3%). Under current cli- matic conditions, 57% (53,925 km2) of Malawi is climatically suitable for macadamia. Future projections suggest that climate change will decrease the suitable areas for macadamia by 18% (17,015 km2) and 21.6% (20,414 km2) based on RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5, respectively, with the distribution of suitability shifting northwards in the 2050s. The southern and central regions of the country will suffer the greatest losses (� 8%), while the northern region will be the least impacted (4%). We conclude that our study provides critical evidence that climate change will reduce the suitable areas for macadamia production in Malawi, depending on cli- mate drivers. Therefore area-specific adaptation strategies are required to build resilience among producers. PLOS ONE PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257007 September 9, 2021 1 / 20 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Zuza EJ, Maseyk K, Bhagwat SA, de Sousa K, Emmott A, Rawes W, et al. (2021) Climate suitability predictions for the cultivation of macadamia (Macadamia integrifolia) in Malawi using climate change scenarios. PLoS ONE 16(9): e0257007. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0257007 Editor: Abel Chemura, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, GERMANY Received: May 14, 2021

Accepted: August 20, 2021 Published: September 9, 2021 Peer Review History: PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process; therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. The editorial history of this article is available here: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257007 Copyright: © 2021 Zuza et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: The data and code underlying this study are available on Zenodo