Impacts of changing climate on the distribution of Solenopsis invicta Buren in Mainland China: Exposed urban population distribution and suitable habitat change

Abstract

As one of the 100 worst invasive alien species in the world, the red imported fire ant (Solenopsis invicta Buren) is of great concern because of its impact on human health, human health, economic development, and native biodiversity. With the ongoing global climate change situation, there is an increased public health threat from the invasion of S. invicta. To understand the distribution of suitable habitats for S. invicta under current and future climate scenarios in mainland China, nine species distribution models were constructed and compared to which one is more suitable to predict the distribution of S. invicta. The performance of Random Forest (RF) model was the best among all the evaluated models. The results showed that current suitable habitats for S. invicta were predicted to exist in the south of Mainland China. The urban population residing on the southeast coast was primarily exposed to suitable habitats of S. invicta, with an exposed urban area of approximately 130000 km2. Annual mean temperature and precipitation of the warmest quarter were considered as important predictors among climate variables. Under future climatic scenarios, the suitable habitats originally held by S. invicta will remain stable, and suitable habitats area for expansion will increase over time. The expansion direction of suitable habitats tends to expand towards the north. Our study can provide a reference for understanding the change of S. invicta suitable habitats and exposed urban population distribution.