Abstract
Coccidiosis is a gastrointestinal disease caused by parasites of the genus Eimeria. To produce the ecological niche model for the geographic distribution of Eimeria species, the maximum entropy algorithm (MaxEnt) was used and 19 bioclimatic variables with a spatial resolution of 30 arc-seconds (approximately 1 km2) were downloaded from the World Climate Database. These were reduced to BIO2, BIO3, BIO4, BIO7 and BIO15 for each species after examining cross-correlations among them to account multicollinearity. A jackknife analysis was included to assess the contribution of five bioclimatic variables and the fit of the model was evaluated with the area under receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). Under a current climate scenario, the jackknife evaluation of the MaxEnt model showed that BIO4 (temperature seasonality) made the greatest contribution to the distribution model for 22 Eimeria species; whereas BIO7 (temperature annual range) was the most important factor that contributes to the distribution model of 10 species. The habitat suitability model based on the maximum entropy theory was supported by AUC values higher than 0.9 and predicted that the suitable habitats for different species of Eimeria are present in southern, eastern and western areas of Mexico. Our study may support future studies exploring factors that constrain the distribution of Eimeria as well as strategies aimed at reducing the disease prevalence.
Highlights
Coccidiosis is a gastrointestinal disease caused by parasites of the genus Eimeria
Under a current climate scenario, the jackknife evaluation of the maximum entropy algorithm (MaxEnt) model showed that BIO4 made the greatest contribution to the distribution model for 22 Eimeria species; whereas BIO7 was the most important factor that contributes to the distribution model of 10 species
Our study may support future studies exploring factors that constrain the distribution of Eimeria as well as strategies aimed at reducing the disease prevalence
Summary
Coccidiosis is a gastrointestinal disease caused by parasites of the genus Eimeria. Environmental and climatic factors are relevant for development, survival and transmission of coccidiosis in large and small ruminants. Despite significant advances in studies of the epidemiology of coccidiosis in Mexico, there is scarce organized information and a lack of ecological niche models that consider abiotic interactions when predicting current parasite distributions, the precise spatial distribution of the parasite in this country is still unknown. Within this context, the aim of the present study was to model the potential current spatial distribution of the parasite using data on a range of bioclimatic parameters
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