Evaluation of Spatial Distribution of Three Major ILeptocorisa/I Pests Using MaxEnt Model

Leptocorisa (Hemiptera: Alydidae) species, which are pests to rice cultivation, have changed their habitats owing to climate change, suggesting the precautionary evaluation of the distribution of these pests. In this study, we targeted three major pests in Leptocorisa species (L. chinensis, L. acuta, and L. oratoria) and evaluated their potential distributions. Most of the recorded regions of the Leptocorisa species are consistent with the result of potential distributions predicted, and the model predicted that climate change would expand their habitats mostly under the effect of minimum temperature and precipitation varied by seasons. The potential distributions of three species were expected to cover major rice cultivation areas regardless of climate change, suggesting a necessity for establishing a sustainable control strategy for the pests. We targeted three major Leptocorisa species (L. chinensis, L. acuta, and L. oratoria) and evaluated their potential distributions using MaxEnt. The results showed that most Asian countries and northern Australia would be suitable for at least one of these pest species, and climate change will expand their habitat northward. All of the developed models were evaluated to be excellent with AUC, TSS, and OR10%. Most of the recorded regions of the Leptocorisa species are consistent with the result of potential distributions predicted in this study. The results confirmed that the minimum temperature of the coldest month mainly influences the three Leptocorisa species distributions. The potential distributions of the three species cover major rice cultivation areas regardless of climate change, suggesting that it would be necessary to establish a sustainable control strategy for the pests.