Phlebotomus tobbi Adler, Theodor & Lourie, 1930 (Diptera: Psychodidae)'nin Günümüz ve Gelecekteki Potansiyel Coğrafi Yayılımının Modellenmesi

Abstract

Phlebotomus tobbi Adler, Theodor & Lourie, 1930, the proven vector of Leishmania infantum Nicolle, 1908, is distributed throughout the Mediterranean Basin, from the Balkans to the northern parts of Iran. The Mediterranean Basin and Europe are among the important climate change hotspots. Thus, a change in the distribution areas of Ph. tobbi and the disease agents it transmits is expected in the future. However, there is no detailed study that predicts the possible changes in the distribution of this species, that is important for human and animal health, in response to changing climatic conditions. In this work, the areas that are bioclimatically suitable for Ph. tobbi under the current conditions and in the future were determined using the MaxEnt modelling method. The presence data recorded for Ph. tobbi and data on bioclimatic variables obtained from the WorldClim database were used to predict the areas that are bioclimatically suitable under the current conditions. Four different climate change scenarios provided in the sixth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, four time periods of 20 years each, and three global climate models (CNRM, IPSL and MIROC) were used to model areas that will be bioclimatically suitable for Ph. tobbi in the future. When the results were examined, it was seen that the two most important bioclimatic variables that determine the bioclimatic suitable areas of the species are BIO1 (Annual average temperature) and BIO16 (Precipitation in the wettest quarter). The present-day bioclimatic suitability maps obtained from the modelling studies showed that the results overlapped to a large extent with the known distribution of Ph. tobbi. Analyses using four different climate change scenarios and three different global climate models predict that bioclimatic suitability for Ph. tobbi could increase between 69% to 79% by the year 2100. The regions with increased bioclimatic suitability were identified as the Balkans, around the Caucasus Mountains, the south of the Caspian Sea, the Western and Central Black Sea, Central Anatolia and Southeastern Anatolia regions of Turkey, and the areas around the Tigris River and the Zagros Mountains. Although there is no significant decrease in the future bioclimatic suitability of the species, in some scenarios, it was observed that the suitability decreased around the Konya Basin and Balkan Mountains. The results of this work can be an important complementary tool for the research planned to better understand the links between climate change and the vector-borne diseases, to develop effective control strategies and to prevent the spread of vector-borne diseases.