Abstract
Climate change is implicated in the alteration of the ranges of species worldwide. Such shifts in species distributions may introduce parasites/pathogens, hosts, and vectors associated with disease to new areas. The parasite Angiostrongylus ( = Parastrongylus) cantonensis is an invasive species that causes eosinophilic meningitis in humans and neurological abnormalities in domestic/wild animals. Although native to southeastern Asia, A. cantonensis has now been reported from more than 30 countries worldwide. Given the health risks, it is important to describe areas with potentially favorable climate for the establishment of A. cantonensis, as well as areas where this pathogen might become established in the future. We used the program Maxent to develop an ecological niche model for A. cantonensis based on 86 localities obtained from published literature. We then modeled areas of potential A. cantonensis distribution as well as areas projected to have suitable climatic conditions under four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) scenarios by the 2050s and the 2070s. The best model contained three bioclimatic variables: mean diurnal temperature range, minimum temperature of coldest month and precipitation of warmest quarter. Potentially suitable habitat for A. cantonensis was located worldwide in tropical and subtropical regions. Under all climate change RCP scenarios, the center of the projected distribution shifted away from the equator at a rate of 68–152 km per decade. However, the extent of areas with highly suitable habitat (>50%) declined by 10.66–15.66% by the 2050s and 13.11–16.11% by the 2070s. These results conflict with previous studies, which have generally found that the prevalence of tropical pathogens will increase during the 21st century. Moreover, it is likely that A. cantonensis will continue to expand its current range in the near future due to introductions and host expansion, whereas climate change will reduce the total geographic area of most suitable climatic conditions during the coming decades.
Highlights
Changes in the distribution and phenology of many organisms were observed as the earth warmed by 0.660.2uC during the 20th century [1]–[4]
Documented occurrences of A. cantonensis were collected from published records
We used AICc scores and model weights along with AUC scores to determine the model that best describes the current distribution of A. cantonensis
Summary
Changes in the distribution and phenology of many organisms were observed as the earth warmed by 0.660.2uC during the 20th century [1]–[4]. Since 1945, warming of the earth has been greater than any other time during the past 1,000 years [5]. Ecological niche modeling (ENM) predicts the fundamental and realized niche of species by relating point occurrence data of species to environmental factors [9], [10]. These models are useful in predicting the geographic range in which a species might be found, but are limited by the exclusion of detailed environmental characteristics (e.g. biotic interactions, heterogeneous landscapes)
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