Format: ORAL

Alex Asase1 Daniel Jimnez-Garca2, A. Townsend Peterson3

1Centre for Plant Medicine Research, P. O. Box 73, Mampong-Akuapem, Ghana 2Centro de Agroecología y Ambiente, Instituto de Ciencias, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Puebla, Puebla, México 3Biodiversity Institute, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA

Climate change is anticipated to have significant impacts on medicinal plant distribution and populations. However, the effects of climate change on many African medicinal plants have not been evaluated. As such, we evaluated the anticipated climate change effects on the geographic distributions of three threatened but commonly used African medicinal plants (Garcinia afzelii, Khaya ivorensis, and K. senegalensis). We used primary biodiversity data records from GBIF and climatic data for the present and future, the latter characterized by two IPCC representative concentration pathway (4.5, 8.5) future emissions scenarios and 27 general circulation models for a 2050-time horizon. The modelled present-day distribution of the medicinal plants generally showed more suitable habitats in the south-eastern parts of its known distribution for G. afzelli and K. ivorensis whereas that of K. senegalensis was similar to its known distribution. Our results showed drastic range reductions and shifts, and only modest gains for the three medicinal plants under future climate change. Thus, climate change may reduce local availability of these medicinal plants which are considered to be threatened.