Our PhD candidate Mr. Abubakari Munna from the Department of Soil and Geological Sciences recently presented a paper to share his PhD research findings at the 3rd World Biodiversity Forum in Davos Switzerland. The international conference was held in Davos Congress Centre in Davos, Switzerland from 16th to 22nd June 2024. Under the theme From Science to Action, the congress brought together researchers across all disciplines of biodiversity science with practitioners and societal actors to explore how to move from science to actions and solutions to conserve biodiversity and set us on a path toward transformation for sustainability.
Mr. Munna presented findings of his paper titled “The right tree in the right place: predicting and mapping global-scale suitable areas for marula tree, Sclerocarya birrea, (A. Rich.) Horchst subspecies cultivation, conservation, and use in restoring global drylands”
Paper presented is the output of his PhD research project and is co-authored by Dr. Nyambilila A. Amuri of the Department of Soil and Geological Sciences, Dr. Proches Musigula of the Department of Agricultural Engineering, and Dr. Dino Woiso of the Department of Biosciences.
Mr. Munna is a final-year Ph.D. (Soil Science) candidate at the Department of Soil and Geological Sciences of Sokoine University of Agriculture. In his Ph.D. research project titled “Global Ecological Niches and the Potential of Marula tree (Sclerocraya birrea) subspecies for Agroforestry in Drylands”. In his PhD research, Mr. Munna uses Maximum Entropy Machine Learning and GIS for modelling and predicting ecological niches of marula tree (Sclerocarya birrea) subspecies at a global scale and in the Tanzania context under the current and future warming climates to identify suitable areas for cultivation, conservation, and using these to restore global drylands.
The paper on global-scale suitable areas for marula tree subspecies has been published in the Journal of Frontiers of Biogeography, https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9mn4r4wz , and the paper for Tanzania context has been published in the Journal of Silva Fennica, https://www.silvafennica.fi/article/23009. Mr. Munna further investigates the potential of the S. birrea subspecies for agroforestry in drylands.
During the conference, Mr. Munna also had an opportunity to meet with Dr. David Obura, the chair of The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), and Prof. Andrew Gonzalez, the co-chair of the Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation (GEO BON) and share the details of his publications on ecological niches of marula tree subspecies in Tanzania and at a global scale, and his PhD research in general. Dr. Obura and Prof. Gonzalez were very impressed by Mr. Munna’s research work and requested him to share his publications with them for further dissemination of the findings in their organizations’ websites and through sharing with their networks.
Mr. Munna (Left) and Dr. Obura (Right)
Mr. Munna (left) and Dr. Obura (second right) in a group photo with other conference participants
Mr. Munna has also previously disseminated his research findings in various international conferences including the 3rd Sokoine University of Agriculture scientific conference of 2023, the 5th international conference on Planted Forests in Nairobi-Kenya in 2023 and the 8th international conference on Drylands, Deserts and Desertification in Negev-Israel in 2022.
The Department of Soil and Geological Sciences and the Sokoine University of Agriculture community congratulate Mr. Munna and his supervisors for this achievement.