Consensus and uncertainty in the geographic range of < i > Aedes aegypti < /i > and < i > Aedes albopictus < /i > in the contiguous United States: Multi-model assessment and synthesis

by Andrew J. Monaghan, Rebecca J. Eisen, Lars Eisen, Janet McAllister, Harry M. Savage, John-Paul Mutebi, Michael A. JohanssonAedes (Stegomyia) aegypti (L.) andAe.(Stegomyia) albopictus (Skuse) mosquitoes can transmit dengue, chikungunya, yellow fever, and Zika viruses. Limited surveillance has led to uncertainty regarding the geographic ranges of these vectors globally, and particularly in regions at the present-day margins of habitat suitability such as the contiguous United States. Empirical habitat suitability models based on environmental conditions can augment surveillance gaps to describe the estimated potential species ranges, but model accuracy is unclear. We identified previously published regional and global habitat suitability models forAe.aegypti (n = 6) andAe.albopictus (n = 8) for which adequate information was available to reproduce the models for the contiguous U.S. Using a training subset of recently updated county-level surveillance records ofAe.aegypti andAe.albopictus and records of counties conducting surveillance, we constructed accuracy-weighted, probabilistic ensemble models from these base models. To assess accuracy and uncertainty we compared individual and ensemble model predictions of species presence or absence to both training and testing data. The ensemble models were among the most accurate and also provided calibrated probabilities of presence for each species. The quantitative probabilistic framework enabled identification of areas with high...

Source: PLoS Computational Biology - October 9, 2019 Category: Biology Authors: Andrew J. Monaghan Source Type: research