Shea (Vitellaria paradoxa C. F. Gaertn.) at the crossroads: current knowledge and research gaps Damian Tom-Dery . Franziska Eller . Christoph Reisdorff . Kai Jensen Received: 23 December 2015 / Accepted: 14 March 2017 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2017 Abstract Shea (Vitellaria paradoxa C. F. Gaertn.) is arguably socio-economically and environmentally the most important plant species in the semi-arid and arid zones of Africa where it is widely distributed. Apart from the economic gains in international export markets where shea butter is valued for use in luxury cosmetic, pharmaceutical and confectionary indus- tries, locally the fat (butter) is the main cooking oil for over 86 million inhabitants. Research during the past decades has acknowledged the chemical and nutri- tional composition as well as the ethnobotanical uses of shea which has resulted in its butter being used in a wide array of products. This review summarizes the current knowledge of the morphological and genetic diversity; propagation, initial growth, and manage- ment; ecology and population structure; chemical and nutritional composition as well as the socioeconomic and livelihood empowerment potential of shea. Little is known about the fruiting behaviour and the responses of shea to the inevitable changes in climate. We suggest ecophysiological and dendrochronologi- cal studies as an option to predict how the domesti- cation of this multipurpose tree species can be sustained even under the prospects of global climate change. Keywords Shea Á Climate change Á Parkland Á Savanna and ecophysiology Introduction The Shea tree (Vitellaria paradoxa C. F. Gaertn., synonyms: Butyrospermum paradoxa (C. F. Gaertn.) Hepper. or Butyrospermum parkii (G. Don.) Kots- chy.), is native to the savanna belt of the Sudanian region centre of endemism from Senegal to the foothills of the Ethiopian highlands (White 1983) covering a 6000 km belt (Okullo et al. 2004; Sanou et al. 2006) across 21 countries (Boffa 2015; Naughton et al. 2015) as shown in Fig. 1. Except in Ghana and Nigeria, where it occurs within 50 km off the coast, shea is generally an inland tree (Hall et al. 1996). It belongs to the plant family Sapotaceae and is the only species of the genus Vitellaria. Two sub-species are recognised: V. paradoxa subsp. paradoxa found in West and Central Africa (from Senegal to the Central African Republic) occurring at elevations of 100–600 m above sea level (Hall et al. 1996; Boffa D. Tom-Dery (&) Á F. Eller Á C. Reisdorff Á K. Jensen Applied Plant Ecology, Biocenter Klein Flottbek, University of Hamburg, Ohnhorststr. 18, 22609 Hamburg, Germany e-mail: tom_dery@yahoo.co.uk D. Tom-Dery Department of Forestry and Forest Resources Management, UDS-Nyankpala Campus, Tamale, Ghana F. Eller Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark 123 Agroforest Syst DOI 10.1007/s10457-017-0080-y