BIODIVERSITAS ISSN: 1412-033X Volume 20, Number 12, December 2019 E-ISSN: 2085-4722 Pages: 3608-3618 DOI: 10.13057/biodiv/d201220 Modeling climatic suitable areas for kedondong (Spondias dulcis) cultivation in central part of Sumatra, Indonesia IBNA HAYATI 1,♥ , ALEX HARTANA 2 , NINA RATNA DJUITA 2 1 Plant Biology Graduate Program, Department of Biology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Institut Pertanian Bogor. Jl. Raya Dramaga Bogor 16680, West Java, Indonesia.  email: nana.ibna@gmail.com. 2 Department of Biology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Institut Pertanian Bogor. Jl. Raya Dramaga Bogor 16680, West Java, Indonesia Manuscript received: 12 October 2019. Revision accepted: 18 November 2019. Abstract. Hayati I, Hartana A, Djuita NR. 2019. Modeling climatic suitable areas for kedondong (Spondias dulcis) cultivation in central part of Sumatra, Indonesia. Biodiversitas 20: 3608-3618. Kedondong (Spondias dulcis Parkinson) is a fruit plant native to Society Island (Polynesia, Pacific Islands) and widely cultivated in many tropical regions and countries. However, little is known about the occurrences and potential distribution of kedondong as well as its adaptability to different climate particularly in central part Sumatra. This paper is the first to predict the distribution of kedondong in central part of Sumatra in spatially explicit way. The maximum entropy (MaxEnt) model was used to analyze the geographical distribution of kedondong and to map its climatically suitable habitat in central part of Sumatra. The results showed that the MaxEnt model can be used to predict the climatic suitable areas for kedondong cultivation. Notably, the extent of the potentially suitable habitat was significantly larger than the present occurrence of kedondong in central part of Sumatra. The most suitable areas identified in this study covered the west coast of Sumatra and the central part of Sumatra but did not reach the eastern coast. They included parts of Kuantan Singingi, Indragiri Hulu, Indragiri Hilir and Pelalawan of Riau Provinces, Batang Hari of Jambi Provinces, and western part which include Agam, Tanah Datar, West Pasaman, Limapuluh Kota, Padang Pariaman, Padang and South Pesisir of West Sumatra Provinces. The MaxEnt model performed better than random method with an Area Under Curve (AUC) value of 0.981. Although kedondong is still largely ignored by scientific community and its potential has not been deeply explored, the findings of this study imply that it is very important to develop kedondong germplasm resources which have adaptability to extreme climate in central part of Sumatra. Keywords: Central part of Sumatra, cultivated plant, distribution, kedondong, modeling INTRODUCTION Kedondong (Spondias dulcis Parkinson), a member of Anacardiaceae, is a fruit plant native to Society Island (Polynesia, Pacific Islands) and widely cultivated in many tropical regions and countries (Kostermans 1991; Mitchell and Daly 2015). It is the most common Spondias species in Southeast Asia (Verheij and Coronel 1991). For a long time, kedondong was not commercially cultivated in Indonesia. It was at first considered as a backyard tree or forest plant and found growing mainly as individual trees in rural areas and home gardens. Kedondong attracts little attention to being developed at a commercial scale. However recently, the Central Java Assessment Institute for Agricultural Technology (AIAT) paid attention to kedondong germplasm in Parang Island (Karimunjawa, Central Java) and tried to characterize the cultivars. It has been published by Cempaka et al. (2019). Different from Java region, Indonesian Tropical Fruit Research Institute (ITFRI) in Solok (West Sumatra) confirmed the absence of kedondong germplasm resources in Sumatra mainly from central part of Sumatra (pers. comm). Central part of Sumatra consists of three provinces, namely Riau, Jambi and West Sumatra. Central part of Sumatra varies in topography and geographical condition, from coastal areas, lowland, highland, mountain and archipelago. The mountainous ranges stretch from north to south along the Sumatra region facing monsoon winds which resulted in varying rainfall patterns (Laumonier 1997). Different rainfall patterns, climate types and temperature also result in the plant grown in Sumatra to be unique in adaptation strategy, resistant to high rainfall and wet climate. These conditions also impacts to the variation in plant species including kedondong. Kedondong is a unique plant in which all of the plant parts are edible and useful (Verheij and Coronel 1991; Lim 2012). The fruit can be eaten raw, or stewed and used for jams, jellies, and juice. The fruit is also used to make fruit candy, pickles, green salads, and curries. Recently in Bekasi region of West Java, kedondong has been processed to produce various commercial products such as sambal, asinan, pia, pastry, cake, and kedondong juice. However this effort still need to be developed, published and socialized massively. People in Rengat (Indragiri Hulu District, Riau Province, Sumatra) process kedondong into a confection product named as dodol as the typical souvenir from Rengat. Besides the fruit, the young leaves are eaten as salad, added to salted fish, eaten as side dish with rice, used as a substitute for tamarind or lemon to get the sour and savory flavor to dishes, and also added to tenderize meat. The leaves are also eaten by cattle. The young, tender panicles can also be eaten by steaming it or dressing as salad. There are many medicinal uses of fruit, leaves, and bark of kedondong. Several treatments of wounds, sores,