Geographic distribution modelling of the bronze bug, a worldwide invasion

MONTEMAYOR S. I.; DELLAPÉ P. M.; MELO M. C.

AGRICULTURAL AND FOREST ENTOMOLOGY

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2015 vol. 17 p. 129 - 137

1461-9555

The goal of this study is to identify the environmental climatic variables that define suitable habitat for Thaumastocoris peregrinus using presenceonly data, in order to identify areas that have suitable habitat for future colonization, and to generate a spatially explicit predictive map of habitat suitability. The environmental data were obtained from WorldClim 1.3 dataset, and the models were performed using Maxent v3.3.3k. Model performance was evaluated through cross-validation. We used the null models approach to test our models. According to both models, the T.peregrinus range will continue to expand. In South America and Africa, the distribution of the bronze bug may expand mainly to the northeast and central areas. Special attention should be given to the regions of southern USA, Central America, and southern China and nearby countries, where conditions are highly suitable but the bronze bug has not yet been recorded and could only arrive by human means. Due to the facts that Eucalyptus species, many of which are highly susceptible to infestation by the bronze bug, are increasingly planted around the world, and that the bronze bug has spread so rapidly over the past eight years, the bronze bug may be expected to appear in many areas where it has not yet been recorded.