The Influence of New Surveillance Data on Predictive Species Distribution Modeling of Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus in the United States.

Hannah S Tiffin,Katelyn M Haydett,Guofeng Cao,Alexander N Wilson-Fallon,Steven M Presley,Steven T Peper

doi:10.3390/insects10110400

Abstract

The recent emergence or reemergence of various vector-borne diseases makes the knowledge of disease vectors’ presence and distribution of paramount concern for protecting national human and animal health. While several studies have modeled Aedes aegypti or Aedes albopictus distributions in the past five years, studies at a large scale can miss the complexities that contribute to a species’ distribution. Many localities in the United States have lacked or had sporadic surveillance conducted for these two species. To address these gaps in the current knowledge of Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus distributions in the United States, surveillance was focused on areas in Texas at the margins of their known ranges and in localities that had little or no surveillance conducted in the past. This information was used with a global database of occurrence records to create a predictive model of these two species’ distributions in the United States. Additionally, the surveillance data from Texas was used to determine the influence of new data from the margins of a species’ known range on predicted species’ suitability maps. This information is critical in determining where to focus resources for the future and continued surveillance for these two species of medical concern.

Highlights

With the recent emergence and reemergence of numerous vector-borne diseases, knowledge of disease vectors’ presence and distribution has become of paramount concern for protecting human and animal health, as well as protecting national economies and national defense
Many localities in the United States, and globally, have only had sporadic surveillance for these two species, or have never had surveillance conducted. To address these common and well-known difficulties in determining the known and predicted suitable ranges for Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus, this study focused on collecting additional surveillance data on the edge of the known range of these species and in other areas that have lacked surveillance in Texas, United States, a state with several incidents of local transmission of viruses transmitted by these two species
Using R Studio, background points were randomly generated for use in the model, with presence points excluded from being chosen as background points, and background points corrected for random sampling, being weighted by the size of the cells in the coordinate system [20,21]

Summary

Introduction

With the recent emergence and reemergence of numerous vector-borne diseases, knowledge of disease vectors’ presence and distribution has become of paramount concern for protecting human and animal health, as well as protecting national economies and national defense. (Stegomyia) albopictus (Skuse) (Diptera: Culicidae) have posed a very real and consistent threat to human health in the tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world, and have recently gained greater attention in the United States as well. These species are known to transmit numerous pathogens of critical health importance, including chikungunya, dengue, yellow fever and Zika viruses [1,2,3,4]. A 1:1 presence to the background ratio was used for all SDMs of Ae. aegypti and a 2:1 presence to background ratio was employed for the SDM of Ae. albopictus using all occurrence records in the United States.

Objectives

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion