Modelling the climatic suitability of Chagas disease vectors on a global scale

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Abstract

The Triatominae are a vector species for Trypanosoma cruzi, the aetiological agent of the neglected tropical Chagas disease. Their distribution stretches across Latin America, with some species occurring outside of the Americas. In particular, the cosmopolitan vector, Triatoma rubrofasciata, has already been detected in many Asian and African countries. We applied an ensemble forecasting niche modelling approach to project the climatic suitability of 11 triatomine species under current climate conditions on a global scale. Our results revealed potential hotspots of triatomine species diversity in tropical and subtropical regions between 21°N and 24°S latitude. We also determined the climatic suitability of two temperate species (T. infestans, T. sordida) in Europe, western Australia and New Zealand. Triatoma rubrofasciata has been projected to find climatically suitable conditions in large parts of coastal areas throughout Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia, emphasising the importance of an international vector surveillance program in these regions.

Data availability

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files.

The following previously published data sets were used

1. GBIF
(2019) GBIF Occurrence Download
GBIF, doi:10.15468/dl.yneo2v.

https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/search?q=triatoma%20rubrofasciata&has_coordinate=true&has_geospatial_issue=false&taxon_key=2008530
(2013) Large-scale patterns in morphological diversity, and species assembly in Neotropical Triatominae (Heteroptera: Reduviidae)
figshare, doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.653959.v6.

https://figshare.com/articles/Geographical_patterns_of_Triatominae_Heteroptera_Reduviidae_their_distribution_richness_and_morphology_in_the_Neotropics/653959/6
1. Fick SE
2. Hijmans RJ
(2017) WorldClim 2: New 1‐km spatial resolution climate surfaces for 481 global land areas
worldclim, doi:10.1002/joc.5086.

https://worldclim.org/version2

Article and author information

Author details

Fanny E Eberhard

Institute for Ecology, Evolution and Diversity, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

For correspondence
Eberhard@bio.uni-frankfurt.de

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-4947-3867
Sarah Cunze

Institute for Ecology, Evolution and Diversity, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Judith Kochmann

Institute for Ecology, Evolution and Diversity, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Sven Klimpel

Institute for Ecology, Evolution and Diversity, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Funding

No external funding was received for this work.

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This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.