Distribution of Bactrocera oleae (Rossi, 1790) throughout the Iberian Peninsula based on a maximum entropy modelling approach

Abstract

AbstractThe Iberian Peninsula (Portugal and Spain) is a great production area of olives. The fruit production can be severely affected by the olive fruit fly, Bactrocera oleae (Rossi, 1790) (Diptera). Detailed geographical distribution maps of key pests, such as B. oleae, are essential for their integrated management. Although different sources reporting the occurrence of B. oleae are available for sub‐regions of Portugal and Spain, the data available are dispersed and centralisation of this information considering the Iberian Peninsula as a faunistic geographical unit is currently lacking. In this work, we built two distribution maps of B. oleae throughout the Iberian Peninsula, one based on occurrence sites and another based on its bioclimatic habitat suitability. After modelling the bioclimatic suitability of B. oleae using a maximum entropy model, three potential distribution areas beyond the previously known occurrence range of the olive fruit fly were identified corresponding to the autonomous community of Galicia (Spain), the Spanish and Portuguese sides of the International Douro Natural Park, and the autonomous community of Castilla y León (Spain). Interestingly, each region houses nowadays autochthonous olive cultivars. The drivers that most contributed to the model were the precipitation of the coldest quarter and the precipitation of driest month which agrees with the B. oleae bioecology. Although our approach is not fully‐comprehensive in terms of occurrence sites, we show how a maxent modelling approach can be useful to identify potential risk areas of B. oleae occurrence throughout a target geographical extent such as the Iberian Peninsula.