Azadirachta indica A. Juss evinced robust resilience to changing climate under shared socioeconomic pathway scenarios in Eastern India

Azadirachta indica A. Juss has become an important tree worldwide due to its immense therapeutic and bio-pesticidal properties. Its habitat is under severe pressure from ever-increasing human population, fast urbanization and changing climates. In this study, the impact of climate change on A. indica was projected through its probable habitat distribution under current and future climatic conditions using maximum entropy modeling under four different Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) i.e., SSP 126, 245, 370 and 585 in four states of India, i.e. Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and eastern Uttar Pradesh. The results revealed that temperature and precipitation played the most important roles in determining the suitable habitat. The annual mean temperature (Bio_1) was found to be the most influential factor in determining the distribution of A. indica. For the current scenario, the species exhibited a high suitable habitat zone in 13.5% of the study area. West Bengal demonstrated the highest area (~ 21175.6 km2) with the most suitable zone for the species. Whereas, in the future climatic scenario, the potential distribution has been predicted to be increased under all the SSPs with the maximum gain in SSP 370 (~ 55.62%) followed by SSP 245 (~ 52.57%). Under all future scenarios, the distribution pattern of A. indica displayed a shift towards the north by 2060 while showing an exemplary resilience to climate change. Our findings offer an in-depth understanding into response of the species to evolving climatic conditions and varied socioeconomic scenarios which offers a critical foundation for protection and management of this crucial species.