Wide and increasing suitability for Aedes albopictus in Europe is congruent across distribution models

Abstract

The Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus), a vector of dengue, Zika and other diseases, was introduced in Europe in the 1970s, where it is still widening its range. Spurred by public health concerns, several studies have delivered predictions of the current and future distribution of the species for this region, often with differing results. We provide the first joint analysis of these predictions, to identify consensus hotspots of high and low suitability, as well as areas with high uncertainty. The analysis focused on current and future climate conditions and was carried out for the whole of Europe and for 65 major urban areas. High consensus on current suitability was found for the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, southern France, Italy and the coastline between the western Balkans and Greece. Most models also agree on a substantial future expansion of suitable areas into northern and eastern Europe. About 83% of urban areas are expected to become suitable in the future, in contrast with ~ 49% nowadays. Our findings show that previous research is congruent in identifying wide suitable areas for Aedes albopictus across Europe and in the need to effectively account for climate change in managing and preventing its future spread.

Figure 1

Patterns of consensus among published predictions of current habitat suitability for Aedes albopictus in Europe. Suitable and unsuitable areas result from the agreement of 5 or more predictions. The map was created using ArcGIS v. 10.6.1 (https://www.arcgis.com/).

Figure 2

Levels of agreement among published predictions of habitat suitability for Aedes albopictus under present-day conditions. Agreement corresponds to the sum of binary suitability maps, with suitable areas coded as one and unsuitable areas as zero. The map was created using ArcGIS v. 10.6.1 (https://www.arcgis.com/).

Figure 3

Future trajectories of suitability for Aedes albopictus in Europe. Each trajectory represents a different combination of predicted status (suitable, uncertain, unsuitable) in the two timeframes (present and future). The map was created using ArcGIS v. 10.6.1 (https://www.arcgis.com/).

Figure 4

Present and future suitability for Aedes albopictus in functional urban areas of major European cities. P represents present-day conditions; F represents future conditions. Colors follow a traffic-light scheme, with green corresponding to the most favorable situation from the human point-of-view (unsuitable with low uncertainty), red as the most negative situation (suitable with low uncertainty), and yellow as the intermediate situation (high uncertainty).