Potential global distribution of Aleurocanthus woglumi considering climate change and irrigation

RESEARCH ARTICLE Potential global distribution of Aleurocanthus woglumi considering climate change and irrigation Antigoni AkrivouID1*, Iro Georgopoulou1, Dimitrios P. Papachristos1, Panagiotis G. Milonas1, Darren J. KriticosID2,3 1 Scientific Directorate of Entomology and Agricultural Zoology, Benaki Phytopathological Institute, Kifissia, Attica, Greece, 2 Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Black Mountain Science & Innovation Park, Canberra, ACT, Australia, 3 University of Queensland, School of Biological Science, St. Lucia, QLD, Australia * a.akrivou@bpi.gr Abstract Citrus blackfly, Aleurocanthus woglumi Ashby (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae), is an important agricultural quarantine pest, causing substantial economic losses to citrus and many other cultivated crops. Aleurocanthus woglumi is found in tropical and subtropical regions but is presently unknown in Europe and the Mediterranean Basin. We used CLIMEX to model the potential distribution of A. woglumi under an historical climate scenario (centred on 1995), including a spatially explicit irrigation scenario. We found that A. woglumi could potentially invade the Mediterranean Basin, and south-east Asia, including Australia. There is potential for it to invade most of sub-Saharan Africa. Irrigation is revealed as an important habitat fac- tor affecting the potential distribution of A. woglumi, increasing its potential range by 53% in Asia. Under a future climate scenario for 2050, its potential distribution increased across all

continents except Africa, where potential range expansion due to relaxation of cold stresses was limited, and was offset by range decrease due to lethal heat or dry stress. As global cli- mates warm, Europe is likely to face a substantial increase in the area at risk of establish- ment by A. woglumi (almost doubling under the 2050 irrigation scenario). The biosecurity threat from A. woglumi is significant in current citrus production areas and poses a challenge to biosecurity managers and risk analysts. Introduction Invasive alien species (IAS) constitute major threats to ecosystem dynamics [1–4], food secu- rity [5], and economic development [5–9]. Globalization is driving biological invasions with increasing trade [10], worldwide transport, and global travel and tourism [11]. Pest invasions have increased in recent decades [12,13], and the impacts of these pests on the environment [14], agricultural production [15] and human health [16] are profound. Consequently, appro- priate phytosanitary measures are often economically justified to protect regions from acci- dental or intentional introduction of non-native species [17]. Pest risk maps and pest risk PLOS ONE PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261626 December 20, 2021 1 / 18 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Akrivou A, Georgopoulou I, Papachristos DP, Milonas PG, Kriticos DJ (2021) Potential global distribution of Aleurocanthus woglumi considering climate change and irrigation. PLoS ONE 16(12): e0261626. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0261626

Editor: Frank H. Koch, USDA Forest Service, UNITED STATES Received: July 19, 2021 Accepted: December 6, 2021 Published: December 20, 2021 Copyright: © 2021 Akrivou et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.