%0 Journal Article %T Predicting Potential Habitat Distribution of Sorrel (Rumex vesicarius L.) in India from Presence-Only Data Using Maximum Entropy Model %A Medagam Thirupathi Reddy %A Hameedunnisa Begum %A Neelam Sunil %A Pandravada Someswara Rao %A Natarajan Sivaraj %A Shashi Kumar %J Open Access Library Journal %V 2 %N 6 %P 1-11 %@ 2333-9721 %D 2015 %I Open Access Library %R 10.4236/oalib.1101590 %X Sorrel (Rumex vesicarius L.) is an underutilized, underexploited, traditional, valuable medicinal and vegetable herb. It is wildly distributed as an environmental weed and is sparsely cultivated in market and truck gardens as a minor leafy vegetable crop in south India. Concerning nutritional and health security of developing country like India, increasing production either by introducing its cultivation in non-traditional areas or by enhancing its productivity can be an important issue in near future. It is, therefore, most essential to predict possible potential new growing areas for sorrel in India. Habitat suitability modeling provides a tool for researchers and managers to under- stand the potential extent of concerned species spread. One dataset for sorrel presence locations (n = 21 points) in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh states of south India was generated following two field surveys organized by the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources Regional Station, Rajendranagar in collaboration with Vegetable Research Station, Dr. Y. S. R. Horticultural University, Rajendranagar during 2010-2011. WorldClim dataset comprising of 19 bioclimatic data layers representing current climatic conditions was downloaded from http://www.worldclim.org. Sorrel presence locations dataset and WorldClim dataset were used with maximum entropy (MaxEnt) modeling to develop preliminary habitat suitability map for sorrel in India. MaxEnt model was able to precisely predict current suitable sorrel habitat (training AUC = 0.993 and test AUC = 0.985). Further study is needed to examine the potential for sorrel to cultivate beyond its current range. Habitat suitability modeling provides an essential tool for enhancing our understanding of sorrel species spread. %K AUC %K Climate Suitability %K DIVA-GIS %K Goodness-of-Fit %K MaxEnt %K Model Accuracy %K ROC Curve %U http://www.oalib.com/paper/3146232