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Species-specific ecological niche modelling predicts different range contractions for Lutzomyia intermedia and a related vector of Leishmania braziliensis following climate change in South America

Overview of attention for article published in Parasites & Vectors, March 2017
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Title
Species-specific ecological niche modelling predicts different range contractions for Lutzomyia intermedia and a related vector of Leishmania braziliensis following climate change in South America
Published in
Parasites & Vectors, March 2017
DOI 10.1186/s13071-017-2093-9
Pubmed ID
Authors

Shannon McIntyre, Elizabeth F. Rangel, Paul D. Ready, Bruno M. Carvalho

Abstract

Before 1996 the phlebotomine sand fly Lutzomyia neivai was usually treated as a synonym of the morphologically similar Lutzomyia intermedia, which has long been considered a vector of Leishmania braziliensis, the causative agent of much cutaneous leishmaniasis in South America. This report investigates the likely range changes of both sand fly species in response to a stabilisation climate change scenario (RCP4.5) and a high greenhouse gas emissions one (RCP8.5). Ecological niche modelling was used to identify areas of South America with climates currently suitable for each species, and then the future distributions of these climates were predicted based on climate change scenarios. Compared with the previous ecological niche model of L. intermedia (sensu lato) produced using the GARP algorithm in 2003, the current investigation modelled the two species separately, making use of verified presence records and additional records after 2001. Also, the new ensemble approach employed ecological niche modelling algorithms (including Maximum Entropy, Random Forests and Support Vector Machines) that have been widely adopted since 2003 and perform better than GARP, as well as using a more recent climate change model (HadGEM2) considered to have better performance at higher resolution than the earlier one (HadCM2). Lutzomyia intermedia was shown to be the more tropical of the two species, with its climatic niche defined by higher annual mean temperatures and lower temperature seasonality, in contrast to the more subtropical L. neivai. These different latitudinal ranges explain the two species' predicted responses to climate change by 2050, with L. intermedia mostly contracting its range (except perhaps in northeast Brazil) and L. neivai mostly shifting its range southwards in Brazil and Argentina. This contradicts the findings of the 2003 report, which predicted more range expansion. The different findings can be explained by the improved data sets and modelling methods. Our findings indicate that climate change will not always lead to range expansion of disease vectors such as sand flies. Ecological niche models should be species specific, carefully selected and combined in an ensemble approach.

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 111 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 111 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Bachelor 16 14%
Student > Ph. D. Student 14 13%
Researcher 14 13%
Student > Master 12 11%
Student > Doctoral Student 9 8%
Other 16 14%
Unknown 30 27%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 26 23%
Environmental Science 20 18%
Medicine and Dentistry 8 7%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 6 5%
Earth and Planetary Sciences 4 4%
Other 11 10%
Unknown 36 32%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 25 March 2017.
All research outputs
#15,451,618
of 22,961,203 outputs
Outputs from Parasites & Vectors
#3,401
of 5,484 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#194,525
of 309,205 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Parasites & Vectors
#108
of 161 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,961,203 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 22nd percentile – i.e., 22% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 5,484 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 5.7. This one is in the 30th percentile – i.e., 30% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 161 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 26th percentile – i.e., 26% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.