Predicting the potential global distribution of Ixodes pacificus under climate change

The survival ability of vectors such as I. pacificus depends on environmental conditions such as abiotic factors and biological factors. However, this study only considered the impact of climate on the distribution of I. pacificus, and did not introduce other abiotic factors such as vegetation type, land cover and host interaction. Some studies have shown that forest cover and land cover change are important factors for predicting the distribution of I. pacificus [3], which leads to certain limitations in this study and ignores the possible impacts of host migra- tion and other factors on the distribution of I. pacificus. Global climate change may cause extreme weather such as droughts and floods, which has a great uncertainty on the distribution of I. pacificus. The overall risk of tick-borne diseases depends on the ecological environment of the tick vector population and varies in response to global change processes depending on the region and vector species [22, 26, 27]. Under the condition of global climate change, climate warming and other changes may change the distribution pattern of disease vectors such as ticks, and the identification of environmental impact factors affecting the distribution of ticks has become an urgent public health issue. Vector surveillance, combined with habitat modeling, can pro- vide a useful public health tool for detecting new areas of tick invasion and potential human risks [28–30]. This can be used to predict the possible distribution areas of vectors under future

climate change and when large-scale field sampling is limited, to better provide effective Fig 12. The potential distribution of suitable areas for I. pacificus around the world under the climatic conditions of SSP5-8.5. (a)2021-2040; (b)2041-2060; (c)2061-2080; (d)2081-2100. Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0309367.g012 PLOS ONE Prediction of the distribution of Ixodes pacificus PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0309367 August 27, 2024 14 / 18