3.4. Ecological niche modelling
3.4.1. Climatic variables analogy
The initial run in Maxent with M. geocarpum without genetic information showed that the most important environmental variables contributing to the predictive model included temperature seasonality, rainfall wettest month, rainfall driest quarter, Bulk density of soil in kg / cubic-meter for 22.5 cm depth and soil texture fraction of clay at 10 cm. Based on the percent contribution values, the selected climatic variables were more or less important in the three distribution models of Kersting’s groundnut (Fig 5a), its genetic Pop1 (Fig 5b) and Pop2 (Fig 5c). Precipitation during the driest quarter was the most influential predictor for M. geocarpum and Pop2. Soil texture fraction clay at 10 cm was the variable contributing mostly to Pop1 model whereas for the model of Pop2, it was the less important (0.3%). In general, soil texture fraction sand at 10 cm presented the least contribution values to the different models.