Predicting the potential distribution of the critically endangered Medemia argun using remotely sensed data

Medemia argun is a rare fan palm of tribe Borasseae. Knowledge about the species was first based on the discovery of its fruits in many ancient Egyptian tombs. Since the discovery of M. argun living in northern Sudan in 1837, then in Egypt in Nakhila Oasis in 1901 and in Dungul Oasis in 1963; no more records were reported for decades either in Egypt or Sudan and it was almost considered globally extinct. However, it was found living in new locations in northern Sudan in 1995, and in 1996. Other records in Egypt were later reported in tributaries of Wadi Allaqi in 2006. The ambiguity about the status of this species stimulated the current study aiming at predicting the potential distribution of M. argun using remotely sensed data. Spectral variables derived from Landsat 8 data and land-surface parameters were used for building the prediction model by applying both GLMs and random forests techniques. The results showed that random forests provided more accurate prediction of the species distribution which is confined to the Nubian Desert. It is hoped that the outcomes form the current study would help in providing more protection to the sites where the species exists.