Predicting the Potential Distribution of Pine Wilt Disease in China under Climate Change

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Pine forests have been hugely damaged by pine wilt disease (PWD). Climate change may affect the geographic distribution of PWD. Based on 646 PWD infestation sites and seven climate variables, the current and potential geographic distribution of PWD was predicted by using the maximum entropy (MaxEnt) model, which can provide a scientific basis for the prevention and control of PWD. This study shows that the fundamental climate variables influencing PWD distribution were rainfall and temperature. Under different climate scenarios in the future, the areas of potential geographic distribution habitats of PWD will increase to varying degrees compared with the area of modern potential geographic distribution habitats, and the centroid of suitable areas of PWD will move to the northeast. ABSTRACT: The primary culprits of pine wilt disease (PWD), an epidemic forest disease that significantly endangers the human environment and the world’s forest resources, are pinewood nematodes (PWN, Bursaphelenchus xylophilus). The MaxEnt model has been used to predict and analyze the potential geographic spread of PWD in China under the effects of climate change and can serve as a foundation for high-efficiency monitoring, supervision, and prompt prevention and management. In this work, the MaxEnt model’s criteria settings were optimized using data from 646 PWD infestation sites and seven climate variables from the ENMeval data package. It simulated and forecasted how PWD may be distributed under present and future (the 2050s and 2070s) climatic circumstances, and the key climate factors influencing the disease were examined. The area under AUC (area under receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve) is 0.940 under the parameters, demonstrating the accuracy of the simulation. Under the current climate conditions, the moderately and highly suitable habitats of PWD are distributed in Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Sichuan, and other provinces. The outcomes demonstrated that the fundamental climate variables influencing the PWD distribution were rainfall and temperature, specifically including maximum temperature of warmest month, mean temperature of driest quarter, coefficient of variation of precipitation seasonality, and precipitation of wettest quarter. The evaluation outcomes of the MaxEnt model revealed that the total and highly suitable areas of PWD will expand substantially by both 2050 and 2070, and the potential distribution of PWD will have a tendency to spread towards high altitudes and latitudes.