Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2012 Apr 30:11:13.
doi: 10.1186/1476-072X-11-13.

Near-present and future distribution of Anopheles albimanus in Mesoamerica and the Caribbean Basin modeled with climate and topographic data

Douglas O Fuller  1 , Martha L Ahumada, Martha L Quiñones, Sócrates Herrera, John C Beier
Affiliations

Near-present and future distribution of Anopheles albimanus in Mesoamerica and the Caribbean Basin modeled with climate and topographic data

Douglas O Fuller et al. Int J Health Geogr. .

Abstract

Background: Anopheles albimanus is among the most important vectors of human malaria in Mesoamerica and the Caribbean Basin (M-C). Here, we use topographic data and 1950-2000 climate (near present), and future climate (2080) layers obtained from general circulation models (GCMs) to project the probability of the species' presence, p(s), using the species distribution model MaxEnt.

Results: The projected near-present distribution parameterized with 314 presence points related well to the known geographic distribution in the study region. Different model experiments suggest that the range of An. albimanus based on near-present climate surfaces covered at least 1.27 million km² in the M-C, although 2080 range was projected to decrease to 1.19 million km². Modeled p(s) was generally highest in Mesoamerica where many of the original specimens were collected. MaxEnt projected near-present maximum elevation at 1,937 m whereas 2080 maximum elevation was projected at 2,118 m. 2080 climate scenarios generally showed increased p(s) in Mesoamerica, although results varied for northern South America and no major range expansion into the mid-latitudes was projected by 2080.

Conclusions: MaxEnt experiments with near present and future climate data suggest that An. albimanus is likely to invade high-altitude (>2,000 m) areas by 2080 and therefore place many more people at risk of malaria in the M-C region even though latitudinal range expansion may be limited.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Distribution ofAn. albimanusrecords used to parameterize and test MaxEnt projections within the study area.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Probability ofAn. albimanuspresence obtained in three different experiments. Top panel: experiment 56 (monthly Tmin, Tmax, rainfall); middle panel: experiment 58 (monthly Tmin, Tmax, SRTM); bottom panel: experiment 61 (monthly Tmin, Tmax, rainfall and SRTM).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Differences between near-present probability of presence obtained from experiment 61 and the mode of three different 2080 A2 climates (experiments 68–70). Top panel: experiment 70 (CCCMA model Tmax, Tmin, rainfall, SRTM) – experiment 61; middle panel: experiment 69 (CSIRO model Tmax, Tmin, rainfall, SRTM) – experiment 61; bottom panel: experiment 68 (Hadley Centre model Tmax, Tmin, rainfall, SRTM) – experiment 61.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Least-presence threshold applied to the mode of experiments 56, 58, and 61 (top panel) and the mode of experiments 68–70 (middle panel). The bottom panel shows the cross-tabulation of the top and middle panels to reveal how the range of An. albimanus may shift from near present climate conditions to 2080.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Differences in maximum temperature (°C × 10) between mean-monthly temperature from near-present climate and mean monthly temperature for 2080 obtained from the three GCMs used in this study: CCCMA (top panel), CSIRO (middle panel), and the Hadley Centre model (bottom panel).
Figure 6
Figure 6
Differences in total annual rainfall amounts, normalized using a Z-scores, between near-present climate and 2080 climates obtained from obtained from the three GCMs used in this study: CCCMA (top panel), CSIRO (middle panel), and the Hadley Centre model (bottom panel).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. WHO/PAHO (World Health Organization/Pan American Health Organization) Malaria in the Americas: time series epidemiological data from 2000 to 2007. Pan American Health Organization, Regional Office for the Americas, Washington DC; 2008.
    1. Arevalo-Herrera M, Quiñones ML, Guerra C, Céspedes N, Giron S, Ahumada M, Piñeros JG, Padilla N, Terrientes Z, Rosas Á, Padilla JC, Escalante AA, Herrera S. Malaria in selected non-Amazonian countries of Latin America. Acta Trop. 2011;121:303–314. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sinka ME, Rubio-Palis Y, Manguin S, Patil AP, Temperley WH, Gething PW, van Boeckel T, Kabaria CW, Harbach RE, Hay SI. The dominant Anopheles vectors of human malaria in the Americas: occurrence data, distribution maps and bionomic précis. Parasites Vectors. 2010;3:72. doi: 10.1186/1756-3305-3-72. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Montoya-Lerma J, Solarte YA, Quiñones ML, López-Ruiz F, Wilkerson RC, González R. Giraldo-Calderón. Malaria vector species in Colombia – A review. Mem Inst Oswaldo Cruz. 2011;106(Suppl. I):223–238. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Rawlins SC, Hinds A, Rawlins JM. Malaria and its vectors in the Caribbean: The continuing challenge of the disease forty-five years after eradication from the islands. West Indian Med J. 2008;57:462. - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources