Predicting Increased Incidence of Common Antibiotic-Resistant and Antibiotic-Associated Pathogens Using Ensemble Species Distribution Modeling.

The Centers for Disease Control estimates antibiotic-associated pathogens result in 2.8 million infections and 38,000 deaths annually in the United States. This study applies species distribution modeling to elucidate the impact of environmental determinants of human infectious disease in an era of rapid global change. We modeled methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Clostridioides difficile using 31 publicly accessible bioclimatic, healthcare, and sociodemographic variables. Ensemble models were created from 8 unique statistical and machine learning algorithms. Using International Classification of Diseases, 10th Edition codes, we identified 305,528 diagnoses of methicillin-resistant S.aureus and 302,001 diagnoses of C.difficile presence. Three environmental factors - average maximum temperature, specific humidity, and agricultural land density - emerged as major predictors of increased methicillin-resistant S.aureus and C.difficile presence; variables representing healthcare availability were less important. Species distribution modeling may be a powerful tool for identifying areas at increased risk for disease presence and have important implications for disease surveillance systems.

Unraveling the ecological niche signals of Verticillium dahliae: Insights from Mediterranean landscapes.

Verticillium wilt (VW), caused by the soil-borne plant pathogenic fungus Verticillium dahliae, is a major disease impacting olive crops globally. In view of the lack of effective post-infection treatments, exclusion and avoidance strategies are essential in disease management. Assessing the risks posed by this pathogen is essential to prevent the spread and to ensure selection of suitable sites for new plantations. This study aimed to elucidate the environmental factors driving V. dahliae establishment in the Andalusia region, in southern Spain, an emblematic Mediterranean landscape for olive cultivation. To this end, we explored ecological niche signals for this fungal pathogen by analyzing 62 environmental variables across 1.6 million hectares dedicated to olive and cotton cultivation, using a 15-yr survey data on VW incidence on presence-absence from both olive and cotton fields. To ensure robust identification of ecological niche signals, we employed randomization-based, non-parametric univariate tests to compare presence records with the broader sampling universe (including absence records). Our findings identified key environmental variables that are associated significantly with V. dahliae presence, including temperature range seasonality (including mean diurnal and annual ranges), summer temperature (maximum of the warmest month, mean of the warmest quarter), and moisture and water availability (near-surface humidity, potential evapotranspiration, vapor pressure) as core niche variables for V. dahliae. Our results replicated the pathogen's known distribution, identifying the Guadalquivir Valley as a particularly high-risk area in view of its mild winters and distinct rainy seasons, providing new insights into the specific environmental conditions that facilitate the pathogen's survival and spread. Furthermore, this study introduces a novel approach to niche modeling that prioritizes variables with consistent effects and significant impact on the presence and distribution of V. dahliae and identifies potential data artifacts. This approach enhances our understanding of ecological requirements in V. dahliae and informs targeted management strategies.

Investigating the effects of species niche shifts on the potential distribution of Tuta absoluta (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae) by using global occurrence data.

Invasive species may occupy quite different environments in their invaded areas to native ones, which may intensively interfere with predicting potential distribution through ecological niche modeling (ENM). Here, we take the tomato leafminer Tuta absoluta Meyrick (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae), a tomato pest, as an example to investigate this topic. We analyzed niche expansion, stability, unfilling, and Schoener's D by principal component analysis (PCA) ordination method to examine its realized niche shifts and to explore how ENM approaches are affected by niche shifts. We used 5 datasets: Asian, African, European, South American, and global occurrence records in this study. Results showed that high niche unfilling for the species' invaded areas in Asia (20%), Africa (12%), and Europe (37%), possibly due to T. absoluta being in the early stages of invasion. High niche expansion was observed in Asia (38%) and Europe (19%), implying that some European and Asian populations had reached new climatic areas. African niche had the most niche stability (94%) and was equivalent to the native one in climate space (PCA ordination method), but the n-dimensional climate space framework showed that they were different. When projecting the native model to Asia and Europe, the native model performed poorly, implying that the niche shifts affected the transferability of the native model. ENM based on global data outperformed than other models, and our results suggested that T. absoluta has a large potential distribution in Asia, Mexico, South Europe, the United States, and Australia. Meanwhile, we recommend updating ENMs based on the species' invasion stage.

Unravelling plant diversification: Intraspecific genetic differentiation in hybridizing Anacyclus species in the western Mediterranean Basin.

PREMISE: The interfertile species Anacyclus clavatus, A. homogamos, and A. valentinus represent a plant complex coexisting in large anthropic areas of the western Mediterranean Basin with phenotypically mixed populations exhibiting a great floral variation. The goal of this study was to estimate the genetic identity of each species, to infer the role of hybridization in the observed phenotypic diversity, and to explore the effect of climate on the geographic distribution of species and genetic clusters. METHODS: We used eight nuclear microsatellites to genotype 585 individuals from 31 populations of three Anacyclus species for population genetic analyses by using clustering algorithms based on Bayesian models and ordination methods. In addition, we used ecological niche models and niche overlap analyses for both the species and genetic clusters. We used an expanded data set, including 721 individuals from 129 populations for ecological niche models of the genetic clusters. RESULTS: We found a clear correspondence between species and genetic clusters, except for A. clavatus that included up to three genetic clusters. We detected individuals with admixed genetic ancestry in A. clavatus and in mixed populations. Ecological niche models predicted similar distributions for species and genetic clusters. For the two specific genetic clusters of A. clavatus, ecological niche models predicted remarkably different areas. CONCLUSIONS: Gene flow between Anacyclus species likely explains phenotypic diversity in contact areas. In addition, we suggest that introgression could be involved in the origin of one of the two A. clavatus genetic clusters, which also showed ecological differentiation.

Nuclear and chloroplast DNA phylogeography reveals high genetic diversity and postglacial range expansion in Quercus mexicana.

PREMISE: Phylogeographical studies are fundamental for understanding factors that influence the spatial distribution of genetic lineages within species. Population expansions and contractions, distribution shifts, and climate changes are among the most important factors shaping the genetic compositions of populations. METHODS: We investigated the phylogeography of an endemic oak, Quercus mexicana (Fagaceae), which has a restricted distribution in northeastern Mexico along the Sierra Madre Oriental and adjacent areas. Nuclear and chloroplast DNA microsatellite markers were used to describe the genetic diversity and structure of 39 populations of Q. mexicana along its entire distribution area. We tested whether population expansion or contraction events influenced the genetic diversity and structure of the species. We also modeled the historical distributional range of Q. mexicana (for the Mid Holocene, the Last Glacial Maximum, and the Last Interglacial) to estimate the extent to which climate fluctuations have impacted the distribution of this oak species. RESULTS: Our results revealed high genetic diversity and low genetic structure in Q. mexicana populations. Ecological niche models suggested historical fluctuations in the distributional range of Q. mexicana. Historical range changes, gene flow, and physical barriers seem to have played an important role in shaping the phylogeographic structure of Q. mexicana. CONCLUSIONS: Our study indicates that the genetic structure of Q. mexicana may have been the result of responses of oak trees not only to heterogeneous environments present in the Sierra Madre Oriental and adjacent areas, but also to elevational and latitudinal shifts in response to climate changes in the past.

Spatial parasitology and the unmapped human helminthiases.

Helminthiases are a class of neglected tropical diseases that affect at least 1 billion people worldwide, with a disproportionate impact on resource-poor areas with limited disease surveillance. Geospatial methods can offer valuable insights into the burden of these infections, particularly given that many are subject to strong ecological influences on the environmental, vector-borne or zoonotic stages of their life cycle. In this study, we screened 6829 abstracts and analysed 485 studies that use maps to document, infer or predict transmission patterns for over 200 species of parasitic worms. We found that quantitative mapping methods are increasingly used in medical parasitology, drawing on One Health surveillance data from the community scale to model geographic distributions and burdens up to the regional or global scale. However, we found that the vast majority of the human helminthiases may be entirely unmapped, with research effort focused disproportionately on a half-dozen infections that are targeted by mass drug administration programmes. Entire regions were also surprisingly under-represented in the literature, particularly southern Asia and the Neotropics. We conclude by proposing a shortlist of possible priorities for future research, including several neglected helminthiases with a burden that may be underestimated.

Spatial distribution and computational modeling for mapping of tuberculosis in Pakistan.

BACKGROUND: Tuberculosis (TB) like many other infectious diseases has a strong relationship with climatic parameters. METHODS: The present study has been carried out on the newly diagnosed sputum smear-positive pulmonary TB cases reported to National TB Control Program across Pakistan from 2007 to 2020. In this study, spatial and temporal distribution of the disease was observed through detailed district wise mapping and clustered regions were also identified. Potential risk factors associated with this disease depending upon population and climatic variables, i.e. temperature and precipitation were also identified. RESULTS: Nationwide, the incidence rate of TB was observed to be rising from 7.03% to 11.91% in the years 2007-2018, which then started to decline. However, a declining trend was observed after 2018-2020. The most populous provinces, Punjab and Sindh, have reported maximum number of cases and showed a temporal association as the climatic temperature of these two provinces is higher with comparison to other provinces. Machine learning algorithms Maxent, Support Vector Machine (SVM), Environmental Distance (ED) and Climate Space Model (CSM) predict high risk of the disease with14.02%, 24.75%, 34.81% and 43.89% area, respectively. CONCLUSION: SVM has a higher significant probability of prediction in the diseased area with a 1.86 partial receiver-operating characteristics (ROC) value as compared with other models.

Phylogeography of the temperate grassland plant Tephroseris kirilowii (Asteraceae) inferred from multiplexed inter-simple sequence repeat genotyping by sequencing (MIG-seq) data.

A group of temperate grassland plant species termed the "Mansen elements" occurs in Japan and is widely distributed in the grasslands of continental East Asia. It has been hypothesized that these species are continental grassland relicts in Japan that stretch back to a colder age, but their migration history has not been elucidated. To assess the migration history of the Mansen elements, we performed phylogeographic analyses of Tephroseris kirilowii, a member of this group, using single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) obtained from multiplexed inter-simple sequence repeat genotyping by sequencing (MIG-seq). It was estimated that the Japanese populations of T. kirilowii were divided from those of continental East Asia at 25.2 thousand years ago (ka) with 95% highest probability density interval (HPD) of 15.3-40.0 ka and that Japanese clades first diverged at 20.2 ka with 95% HPD of 10.4-30.1 ka. As the climatically suitable range during the last glacial maximum (LGM) estimated using ecological niche modeling (ENM) was limited in Japan and there was a slight genetic differentiation among Japanese populations, a post-glacial expansion of T. kirilowii in the Japanese Archipelago was indicated.

Modeling potential risk areas of Orthohantavirus transmission in Northwestern Argentina using an ecological niche approach.

BACKGROUND: Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS) is a rodent-borne zoonosis in the Americas, with up to 50% mortality rates. In Argentina, the Northwestern endemic area presents half of the annually notified HPS cases in the country, transmitted by at least three rodent species recognized as reservoirs of Orthohantavirus. The potential distribution of reservoir species based on ecological niche models (ENM) can be a useful tool to establish risk areas for zoonotic diseases. Our main aim was to generate an Orthohantavirus risk transmission map based on ENM of the reservoir species in northwest Argentina (NWA), to compare this map with the distribution of HPS cases; and to explore the possible effect of climatic and environmental variables on the spatial variation of the infection risk. METHODS: Using the reservoir geographic occurrence data, climatic/environmental variables, and the maximum entropy method, we created models of potential geographic distribution for each reservoir in NWA. We explored the overlap of the HPS cases with the reservoir-based risk map and a deforestation map. Then, we calculated the human population at risk using a census radius layer and a comparison of the environmental variables' latitudinal variation with the distribution of HPS risk. RESULTS: We obtained a single best model for each reservoir. The temperature, rainfall, and vegetation cover contributed the most to the models. In total, 945 HPS cases were recorded, of which 97,85% were in the highest risk areas. We estimated that 18% of the NWA population was at risk and 78% of the cases occurred less than 10 km from deforestation. The highest niche overlap was between Calomys fecundus and Oligoryzomys chacoensis. CONCLUSIONS: This study identifies potential risk areas for HPS transmission based on climatic and environmental factors that determine the distribution of the reservoirs and Orthohantavirus transmission in NWA. This can be used by public health authorities as a tool to generate preventive and control measures for HPS in NWA.

Impacts of climate change and habitat loss on the distribution of the endangered crested capuchin monkey (Sapajus robustus).

The crested capuchin monkey (Sapajus robustus) is endemic to the Atlantic Forest and its transition areas within Cerrado in Brazil. The species is currently threatened by habitat loss and has been classified as endangered by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species since 2015. We used ecological niche models built with MaxEnt to predict the potential impact of climate change on the distribution of this species. The models were projected onto the reference climate, considering six climate scenarios (three Global Climate Models and two Representative Concentration Pathways) from IPCC for 2050 and 2070. We showed that while the amount of suitable area is expected to change little across the species' range in most evaluated climate scenarios, climatic conditions may significantly deteriorate by 2070 in the pessimistic scenario, especially in currently warmer and dryer areas to the west. As seen on other capuchin monkeys, the potential use of tools by crested capuchins may increase the chances of the species adaptation to novel harsher environmental conditions. The major negative impacts across the species range also include habitat loss and fragmentation so that the conservation of the species relies on the protection of the forest remnants in the center of its distribution, which can harbor populations of the species in current and future climate scenarios.

Utilizing a top predator to prioritize site protection for biodiversity conservation.

Ongoing global change makes it ever more urgent to find creative solutions for biodiversity preservation, but prioritizing sites for protection can be challenging. One shortcut lies in mapping the habitat requirements of well-established biodiversity indicators, such as top predators, to identify high-biodiversity sites. Here, we planned site protection for biodiversity conservation by developing a multi-scale species distribution model (SDM) for the raptorial Northern Goshawk (Accipiter gentilis; goshawk) breeding in an extensive megacity region of Japan. Specifically, we: (1) examined the determinants of top predator occurrence and thus of high-biodiversity value in this megacity setting, (2) identified the biodiversity hotspots, (3) validated whether they actually held higher biodiversity through an independent dataset, and (4) evaluated their current protection by environmental laws. The SDM revealed that goshawks preferred secluded sites far from roads, with abundant forest within a 100 m radius and extensive forest ecotones suitable for hunting within a 900 m radius. This multi-scale landscape configuration was independently confirmed to hold higher biodiversity, yet covered only 3.2% of the study area, with only 44.0% of these sites legally protected. Thus, a rapid biodiversity assessment mediated by a top predator quickly highlighted: (1) the poor development of biodiversity-friendly urban planning in this megacity complex, an aspect overlooked for decades of rapid urban sprawl, and (2) the extreme urgency of extending legal protection to the sites missed by the current protected area network. Exigent biodiversity indicators, such as top predators, could be employed in the early or late stages of anthropogenic impacts in order to proactively incorporate biodiversity protection into planning or flag key biodiversity relics. Our results confirm and validate the applied reliability of top predatory species as biodiversity conservation tools.

Integrated Environmental and Genomic Analysis Reveals the Drivers of Local Adaptation in African Indigenous Chickens.

Breeding for climate resilience is currently an important goal for sustainable livestock production. Local adaptations exhibited by indigenous livestock allow investigating the genetic control of this resilience. Ecological niche modeling (ENM) provides a powerful avenue to identify the main environmental drivers of selection. Here, we applied an integrative approach combining ENM with genome-wide selection signature analyses (XPEHH and Fst) and genotype-environment association (redundancy analysis), with the aim of identifying the genomic signatures of adaptation in African village chickens. By dissecting 34 agro-climatic variables from the ecosystems of 25 Ethiopian village chicken populations, ENM identified six key drivers of environmental challenges: One temperature variable-strongly correlated with elevation, three precipitation variables as proxies for water availability, and two soil/land cover variables as proxies of food availability for foraging chickens. Genome analyses based on whole-genome sequencing (n = 245), identified a few strongly supported genomic regions under selection for environmental challenges related to altitude, temperature, water scarcity, and food availability. These regions harbor several gene clusters including regulatory genes, suggesting a predominantly oligogenic control of environmental adaptation. Few candidate genes detected in relation to heat-stress, indicates likely epigenetic regulation of thermo-tolerance for a domestic species originating from a tropical Asian wild ancestor. These results provide possible explanations for the rapid past adaptation of chickens to diverse African agro-ecologies, while also representing new landmarks for sustainable breeding improvement for climate resilience. We show that the pre-identification of key environmental drivers, followed by genomic investigation, provides a powerful new approach for elucidating adaptation in domestic animals.

The tangled evolutionary history of a long-debated Mesoamerican taxon: The Velazquez Woodpecker (Melanerpes santacruzi, Aves: Picidae).

The Velazquez Woodpecker Melanerpes santacruzi is a highly polytypic species distributed from east-central Mexico to northern Nicaragua. The ample variation in body size, barring of the plumage, and the coloration of nasal tufts, neck, and belly have fueled debates about the taxonomy and evolutionary history of the species; however, the processes generating these patterns of variation and the underlying population dynamics throughout the species' distribution remain poorly understood. Here, we employed reduced representation genome sequencing (NextRAD) and Ecological Niche Modeling methods to test the distinctiveness of the Velazquez Woodpecker based on this new set of genomic data and analyze the correspondence of the genetic structure and ecological differentiation with phenotypic variation and geographic distribution. From phylogenetic and demographic analyses including the Golden-Fronted (M. aurifrons) and Red-bellied Woodpecker (M. carolinus), we obtained results congruent with previous molecular phylogenies. The clades of M. santacruzi and M. carolinus-M. aurifrons are reciprocally monophyletic, although the sister group relationship of M. aurifrons is ambiguous. Using genetic and ecological analyses, we found that the species is structured into three genetically and ecologically differentiated groups comprising the subspecies (1) M. s. santacruzi, (2) M. s. dubius and (3) M. s. grateloupensis-polygrammus-veraecrucis. These groups diverged recently, with two splits between 250,000 and 150,000 years ago, and show a significant genetic admixture among them, especially in their current contact zones. Ecological and demographic models suggest the existence of intermittent areas of sympatry and connectivity among populations of M. santacruzi since the Last Interglacial period. We also found evidence of bi-directional gene flow between the species M. aurifrons and the nearby populations of M. santacruzi (M. s. grateloupensis), along the Sierra Madre Oriental in northeastern Mexico. Gene flow seems to be uneven, with prevalence of movement in the direction from M. aurifrons to M. s. grateloupensis.

Plague risk in the western United States over seven decades of environmental change.

After several pandemics over the last two millennia, the wildlife reservoirs of plague (Yersinia pestis) now persist around the world, including in the western United States. Routine surveillance in this region has generated comprehensive records of human cases and animal seroprevalence, creating a unique opportunity to test how plague reservoirs are responding to environmental change. Here, we test whether animal and human data suggest that plague reservoirs and spillover risk have shifted since 1950. To do so, we develop a new method for detecting the impact of climate change on infectious disease distributions, capable of disentangling long-term trends (signal) and interannual variation in both weather and sampling (noise). We find that plague foci are associated with high-elevation rodent communities, and soil biochemistry may play a key role in the geography of long-term persistence. In addition, we find that human cases are concentrated only in a small subset of endemic areas, and that spillover events are driven by higher rodent species richness (the amplification hypothesis) and climatic anomalies (the trophic cascade hypothesis). Using our detection model, we find that due to the changing climate, rodent communities at high elevations have become more conducive to the establishment of plague reservoirs-with suitability increasing up to 40% in some places-and that spillover risk to humans at mid-elevations has increased as well, although more gradually. These results highlight opportunities for deeper investigation of plague ecology, the value of integrative surveillance for infectious disease geography, and the need for further research into ongoing climate change impacts.

Climatic shifts drove major contractions in avian latitudinal distributions throughout the Cenozoic.

Many higher level avian clades are restricted to Earth's lower latitudes, leading to historical biogeographic reconstructions favoring a Gondwanan origin of crown birds and numerous deep subclades. However, several such "tropical-restricted" clades (TRCs) are represented by stem-lineage fossils well outside the ranges of their closest living relatives, often on northern continents. To assess the drivers of these geographic disjunctions, we combined ecological niche modeling, paleoclimate models, and the early Cenozoic fossil record to examine the influence of climatic change on avian geographic distributions over the last ∼56 million years. By modeling the distribution of suitable habitable area through time, we illustrate that most Paleogene fossil-bearing localities would have been suitable for occupancy by extant TRC representatives when their stem-lineage fossils were deposited. Potentially suitable habitat for these TRCs is inferred to have become progressively restricted toward the tropics throughout the Cenozoic, culminating in relatively narrow circumtropical distributions in the present day. Our results are consistent with coarse-scale niche conservatism at the clade level and support a scenario whereby climate change over geological timescales has largely dictated the geographic distributions of many major avian clades. The distinctive modern bias toward high avian diversity at tropical latitudes for most hierarchical taxonomic levels may therefore represent a relatively recent phenomenon, overprinting a complex biogeographic history of dramatic geographic range shifts driven by Earth's changing climate, variable persistence, and intercontinental dispersal. Earth's current climatic trajectory portends a return to a megathermal state, which may dramatically influence the geographic distributions of many range-restricted extant clades.

Risk analysis of the spread of the quarantine pest mite Schizotetranychus hindustanicus in Brazil.

Schizotetranychus hindustanicus Hirst (Acari: Tetranychidae) known as the Hindustan citrus mite, is a quarantine pest present in Roraima, Brazil. In 1924 this pest was described in India. It was reported in 2002 in Venezuela and in Roraima in 2008. In 2010, the Hindustan citrus mite was reported in Colombia. It is possible that it will be introduced in other areas of Brazil, resulting in a threat to Brazilian citrus industry. Our objective was to determine the most suitable regions of Brazil for S. hindustanicus using a maximum entropy (Maxent) algorithm, based on native and invasive updated occurrence records from published research, field surveys and online databases. To avoid overfitting and improving transferability, we chose parameter settings of Maxent to construct and validate models by searching for the best combination of feature classes and regularization multipliers. The model obtained showed excellent performance according to all evaluation metrics used. A high potential for the establishment of S. hindustanicus was identified in large areas of Roraima, the extreme west of Amazonas, the entire north of the State of Pará, also in northeast, south, east, and north of the State of Amapá, and in a small portion northwest of the State of Maranhão (all states belonging to the northern region of Brazil). Our results provide information for policy making and quarantine measures, especially where S. hindustanicus is still absent in Brazil.

Assembly dynamics of East Asian subtropical evergreen broadleaved forests: New insights from the dominant Fagaceae trees.

The dominant species of a biome can be regarded as its genuine indicator. Evergreen broadleaved forests (EBLFs) in subtropical East Asia harbor high levels of species biodiversity and endemism and are vital to regional carbon storage and cycling. However, the historical assembly of this unique biome is still controversial. Fagaceae is the most essential family in East Asian subtropical EBLFs and its dominant species are vital for the existence of this biome. Here, we used the dominant Fagaceae species to shed light on the dynamic process of East Asian subtropical EBLFs over time. Our results indicate high precipitation in summer and low temperature in winter are the most influential climatic factors for the distribution of East Asian subtropical EBLFs. Modern East Asian subtropical EBLFs did not begin to appear until 23 Ma, subsequently experienced a long-lasting development in the Miocene and markedly deteriorated at about 4 Ma, driven jointly by orogenesis and paleoclimate. We also document that there is a lag time between when one clade invaded the region and when its members become dominant species within the region. This study may improve our ability to predict and mitigate the threats to biodiversity of East Asian subtropical EBLFs and points to a new path for future studies involving multidisciplinary methods to explore the assembly of regional biomes.

Morpho-physiological and demographic responses of three threatened Ilex species to changing climate aligned with species distribution models in future climate scenarios.

The success of a species in future climate change scenarios depends on its morphological, physiological, and demographic adaptive responses to changing climate. The existence of threatened species against climate adversaries is constrained due to their small population size, narrow genetic base, and narrow niche breadth. We examined if ecological niche model (ENM)-based distribution predictions of species align with their morpho-physiological and demographic responses to future climate change scenarios. We studied three threatened Ilex species, viz., Ilex khasiana Purkay., I. venulosa Hook. f., and I. embelioides Hook. F, with restricted distribution in Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot. Demographic analysis of the natural populations of each species in Meghalaya, India revealed an upright pyramid suggesting a stable population under the present climate scenario. I. khasiana was confined to higher elevations only while I. venulosa and I. embelioides had wider altitudinal distribution ranges. The bio-climatic niche of I. khasiana was narrow, while the other two species had relatively broader niches. The ENM-predicted potential distribution areas under the current (2022) and future (2050) climatic scenarios (General Circulation Models (GCMs): IPSL-CM5A-LR and NIMR-HADGEM2-AO) revealed that the distribution of highly suitable areas for the most climate-sensitive I. khasiana got drastically reduced. In I. venulosa and I. embelioides, there was an increase in highly suitable areas under the future scenarios. The eco-physiological studies showed marked variation among the species, sites, and treatments (p < 0.05), indicating the differential responses of the three species to varied climate scenarios, but followed a similar trend in species performance aligning with the model predictions.

The possibilities of explicit Striga (Striga asiatica) risk monitoring using phenometric, edaphic, and climatic variables, demonstrated for Malawi and Zambia.

Food insecurity continues to affect more than two-thirds of the population in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), particularly those depending on rain-fed agriculture. Striga, a parasitic weed, has caused yield losses of cereal crops, immensely affecting smallholder farmers in SSA. Although earlier studies have established that Striga is a constraint to crop production, there is little information on the spatial extent of spread and infestation severity of the weed in some SSA countries like Malawi and Zambia. This study aimed to use remotely sensed vegetation phenological (n = 11), climatic (n = 3), and soil (n = 4) variables to develop a data-driven ecological niche model to estimate Striga (Striga asiatica) spatial distribution patterns over Malawi and Zambia, respectively. Vegetation phenological variables were calculated from 250-m enhanced vegetation index (EVI) timeline data, spanning 2013 to 2016. A multicollinearity test was performed on all 18 predictor variables using the variance inflation factor (VIF) and Pearson's  correlation approach. From the initial 18 variables, 12 non-correlated predictor variables were selected to predict Striga risk zones over the two focus countries. The variable "start of the season" (start of the rainy season) showed the highest model relevance, contributing 26.8% and 37.9% to Striga risk models for Malawi and Zambia, respectively. This indicates that the crop planting date influences the occurrence and the level of Striga infestation. The resultant occurrence maps revealed interesting spatial patterns; while a very high Striga occurrence was predicted for central Malawi and eastern Zambia (mono-cultural maize growing areas), lower occurrence rates were found in the northern regions. Our study shows the possibilities of integrating various ecological factors with a better spatial and temporal resolution for operational and explicit monitoring of Striga-affected areas in SSA. The explicit identification of Striga "hotspot" areas is crucial for effectively informing intervention activities on the ground.

Reduction in the potential distribution of bumble bees (Apidae: Bombus) in Mesoamerica under different climate change scenarios: Conservation implications.

Bumble bees are an ecologically and economically important group of pollinating insects worldwide. Global climate change is predicted to affect bumble bee ecology including habitat suitability and geographic distribution. Our study aims to estimate the impact of projected climate change on 18 Mesoamerican bumble bee species. We used ecological niche modeling (ENM) using current and future climate emissions scenarios (representative concentration pathway 4.5, 6.0, and 8.5) and models (CCSM4, HadGEM2-AO, and MIROC-ESM-CHEM). Regardless of the scenario and model applied, our results suggest that all bumble bee species are predicted to undergo a reduction in their potential distribution and habitat suitability due to projected climate change. ENMs based on low emission scenarios predict a distribution loss ranging from 7% to 67% depending on the species for the year 2050. Furthermore, we discovered that the reduction of bumble bee geographic range shape will be more evident at the margins of their distribution. The reduction of suitable habitat is predicted to be accompanied by a 100-500 m upslope change in altitude and 1-581 km shift away from the current geographic centroid of a species' distribution. On average, protected natural areas in Mesoamerica cover ~14% of each species' current potential distribution, and this proportion is predicted to increase to ~23% in the high emission climate change scenarios. Our models predict that climate change will reduce Mesoamerican bumble bee habitat suitability, especially for rare species, by reducing their potential distribution ranges and suitability. The small proportion of current and future potential distribution falling in protected natural areas suggests that such areas will likely have marginal contribution to bumble bee habitat conservation. Our results have the capacity to inform stakeholders in designing effective landscape management for bumble bees, which may include developing restoration plans for montane pine oak forests habitats and native flowering plants.