Climate-induced range shifts of invasivespecies (Diaphorina citriKuwayama)

BACKGROUND: The Asian citrus psyllid (ACP)Diaphorina citriKuwayama (Hemiptera: Liviidae) is a destructive, invasive speciesthat poses a serious threat to the citrus industry wherever it occurs. The psyllid vectors the phloem-limited bacteria‘CandidatusLiberibacter americanus’and‘Ca. L. asiaticus’, causal agents of the incurable citrus greening disease or huanglongbing (HLB). Itis essential to understand which regions and areas are suitable for colonization by ACP to formulate appropriate policy and pre-ventive measures. Considering its biology and ecology, we used a machine learning algorithm based on the MaxEnt (MaximumEntropy) principle, to predict the potential global distribution of ACP using bioclimatic variables and elevation.RESULTS: The model predictions are consistent with the known distribution of ACP and also highlight the potential occurrenceoutside its current ecological range, that is, primarily in Africa, Asia and the Americas. The most important abiotic variablesdriving the global distribution of ACP were annual mean temperature, seasonality of temperature and annual precipitation.