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Member Symposium

Widespread Communication in Science: Graphical Representation of Leading-edge Techniques

Using distribution models to forecast the future: Will climate change decouple an invasive stored product insect and its biocontrol agent?

Sunday, November 10, 2024
3:35 PM – 3:45 PM MST
Location: Phoenix Convention Center, 127 C, PCC
Oral Presentation
The larger grain borer (Prostephanus truncatus [Horn] [Coleoptera: Bostrichidae]) is a forest-dwelling destructive pest of stored corn and cassava native to Central American and invasive in Africa. Its native predator, Teretrius nigrescens Lewis (Coleoptera: Histeridae), was released in Africa as a biocontrol agent with some success. However, responses to future changes in climate may impact insect species differently and, consequently, the efficacy of the biocontrol. Thus, we (1) used bioclimatic variables and occurrences to model the potential distribution of T. nigrescens in its native and released ranges, (2) projected future potential distribution to 2050 and 2070 under low and high climate change scenarios (representative concentration pathways (RCP) 2.6 and 8.5, respectively), and (3) compared ranges with P. truncatus. We used the platform Wallace, which utilized an optimized maximum entropy (MaxEnt) model. Highly suitable areas ( >75%) of T. nigrescens current distribution totaled 5.5% and 8.2% for the Americas and Africa, respectively. Areas under RCP2.6 are estimated to double by 2050 and remain stable. Under RCP8.5, areas are projected to nearly triple by 2050 and increase again 1.3 times by 2070. However, projected T. nigrescens distributions are much smaller than its prey. The overlap of current highly suitable distributions is lower in the native (4.5%) than African range (22.2%), but the overlap is expected to increase with projected climate change (e.g., 22.2% and 58% in America and Africa, respectively, 2070 RCP8.5). These results suggest that biocontrol alone is not a singular effective measure to eradicate pest populations, particularly at northern latitudes.