Prediction of the Current and Future Distribution of Tomato Leafminer in China Using the MaxEnt Model

Abstract

Tomato leafminer (Tuta absoluta), an important quarantine pest in China, was first detected in China in Yili, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, in 2017. Its damage has grown in recent years, severely harming Solanaceae plants in China and causing enormous economic losses. The study and prediction of the current and future suitable habitats for tomato leafminer in China can provide an important reference for the monitoring, early warning, and prevention and control of the pest. Here, tomato leafminer’s potential distributions in China under the current climate and four future climate models (SSP1–26, SSP2–45, SSP3–70, and SSP5–85) were predicted using the maximum entropy (MaxEnt) model with ArcGIS software, and the accuracy of the prediction results was tested. The areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves of the models were all greater than 0.8, and the test omission rate of the model simulation results basically agreed with the theoretical omission rate, suggesting that the prediction results had satisfactory accuracy and reliability. Under the current climatic conditions, the highly suitable habitats for tomato leafminer in China are mainly distributed in most of North China, most of East China, most of South China, most of Central China, most of Southwest China, some parts of Northeast China, and only a few parts of Northwest China. Annual mean temperature is the main environmental factor limiting the distribution. The suitable habitats for tomato leafminer will shift under different future climate models: Under SSP1–26, the highly suitable habitats will spread to the north and northeast and to the southeast coastal areas; under SSP2–45, the size of highly suitable habitats will grow from the present to 2080 and shrink from 2081 to 2100; under SSP3–70, the highly suitable habitats will spread northeastwards, but the highly suitable habitats in southeast coastal areas will shrink from 2081 to 2100 and turn into moderately suitable habitats. Under SSP5–85, the highly suitable habitats will spread northeastwards and northwestwards, with the size of highly suitable habitats gradually decreasing and the size of moderately suitable habitats increasing. Different climates will lead to different distributions of suitable habitats for tomato leafminer, with annual mean temperature, isothermality, and mean diurnal range as the main environmental influences.