Mapping potential habitats for the management of exportable insects in South Korea

Potential Distributions of the Invasive Barnacle Scale Ceroplastes cirripediformis (Hemiptera: Coccidae) Under Climate Change and Implications for Its Management

Ceroplastes cirripediformis Comstock is one of the most destructive invasive pests that have caused various negative impacts to agricultural, ornamental, and greenhouse plants. Since it is time- and labor-consuming to control C. cirripediformis, habitat evaluation of this pest may be the most cost-effective method for predicting its dispersal and avoiding its outbreaks. Here, we evaluated the effects of climatic variables on distribution patterns of C. cirripediformis and produced a global risk map for its outbreak under current and future climate scenarios using the Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) model. Our results showed that mean temperature of driest quarter (Bio 9), precipitation of coldest quarter (Bio 19), precipitation of warmest quarter (Bio 18), and mean temperature of wettest quarter (Bio 8) were the main factors influencing the current modeled distribution of C. cirripediformis, respectively, contributing 41.9, 29.4, 18.8, and 7.9%. The models predicted that, globally, potential distribution of C. cirripediformis would be across most zoogeographical regions under both current and future climate scenarios. Moreover, in the future, both the total potential distribution region and its area of highly suitable habitat are expected to expand slightly in all representative concentration pathway scenarios. The information generated from this study will contribute to better identify the impacts of climate change upon C. cirripediformis's potential distribution while also providing a scientific basis for forecasting insect pest spread and outbreaks. Furthermore, this study serves an early warning for the regions of potential distribution, predicted as highly suitable habitats for this pest, which could promote its prevention and control.

Species delimitation of the Dermacentor ticks based on phylogenetic clustering and niche modeling

Three species belonging to the genus Dermacentor (Acari: Ixodidae), D. marginatus, D. nuttalli and D. silvarum are well known as vectors for a great variety of infection pathogens. All three of them are host ticks, which are very similar in morphology characteristics, life cycle, seasonal variation and ecological conditions, making it difficult to distinguish the three species. In the present study, these three species were delimitated based on molecular data and ecological niche. The molecular analysis showed that the three species can be distinguished by COI and ITS2 sequences. We created future potential distribution maps for the three species under climate changes with MaxEnt, which highlighted the different levels of the suitable habitats for each tick species. In addition, niche comparisons among the three species in Dermacentor were conducted, and the analysis suggested that niche overlap was relatively high with D. nuttalli and D. silvarum compared to the other species pairs, which was consistent with the molecular data. Niche equivalency and similarity test confirmed that these Dermacentor species were closely related but distinct species. In conclusion, delimitation of these three species within Dermacentor was supported by molecular phylogeny and quantitative ecological space. This study will provide deep insights into the biology, ecology, and diversification processes within Dermacentor species, and for the development of effective control for ticks.