Ecological niche modeling for predicting the habitat suitability of fascioliasis based on maximum entropy model in southern Caspian Sea littoral, Iran.

Ecological niche modeling for predicting the habitat suitability of fascioliasis based on maximum entropy model in southern Caspian Sea littoral, Iran. Acta Trop. 2019 Jul 09;:105079 Authors: Meshgi B, Majidi-Rad M, Hanafi-Bojd AA, Fathi S Abstract The present study aimed to determine the number of cases of animal fascioliasis per district in the southern littoral of Caspian Sea and to model suitable ecological niches for Fasciola spp. in the region. Stool samples (n = 2688) were collected from cattle and sheep in Guilan, Mazandaran and Golestan provinces. The samples were tested using flotation method, and the number of parasite eggs per gram (EPG) of feces was recorded for each sample. Occurrence-only data of Fasciola were collected from the field. A total of 96 points/locations were used to model the ecological niche of Fasciola in maximum entropy (MaxEnt) and geographical information system (GIS). The spatial layers were compiled from 23 bioclimatic and biophysical variables for modeling analysis. Jackknife analysis was used to determine the relative importance of all variables in the model. In the present study, the proportion of fascioliasis in both hosts was highest in Guilan province (sheep: 12.34%, cattle: 15.16%), followed by Mazandaran (sheep: 7.3%, cattle: 6.25%) and Golestan (sheep: 0%, cattle: 0.94%) provinces. The Area Under Curve (AUC) value of the model was 0.909, indicating a good predictive power of the model. ...
Source: Acta Tropica - Category: Infectious Diseases Authors: Tags: Acta Trop Source Type: research