Bioclimatic Suitability of Actual and Potential Cultivation Areas for Jacaranda mimosifolia in Chinese Cities

Jacaranda mimosifolia is regarded as a prized ornamental tree in the urban landscape with attractive, abundant and long-lasting violet-colored flowers and graceful tree form. It has been widely cultivated in recent years in many Chinese cities. However, the lack of scientific and practical guidance to cultivate the exotic species has brought about planting failures in some areas, incurring substantial economic losses and landscape decline. A comprehensive understanding of the current spatial pattern and climatic conditions of J. mimosifolia in China can inform species choice, planting and management. We collected data on the geographical coordinates of 257 planting cities and acquired additional information from the literature and field surveys. The limiting factors for cultivation were investigated using principal component analysis (PCA) of 19 bioclimatic parameters of the sampled sites. The potentially suitable habitats were predicted by BIOCLIM modeling using eight selected ecological-important climatic parameters. We found that the present cultivated areas were focused in the low-altitude parts of the subtropical zone, mainly covering the provinces of Yunnan, Sichuan, Guangxi, Guangdong and Fujian. The PCA results indicated that temperature was the clinching determinant of the current cultivation patterns, especially annual mean temperature, the minimum temperature of the coldest month and the mean temperature of the warmest quarter. Moisture was a necessary but not critical secondary factor. The predicting model for potential habitats was graded as “excellent” by objective validation measures. The findings can provide science-based evidence to plan the expansion of the biogeographical range of cultivation into hitherto unplanted cities and rationalize urban tree introduction and management practices.