TITLE:
Maximum Entropy Ecological Niche Prediction of the Current Potential Geographical Distribution of Eimeria Species of Cattle, Sheep and Goats in Mexico
AUTHORS:
Yazmin Alcala-Canto, Aldo Alberti-Navarro, Juan Antonio Figueroa-Castillo, Froylan Ibarra-Velarde, Yolanda Vera-Montenegro, Maria Eugenia Cervantes-Valencia
KEYWORDS:
Eimeria, MaxEnt, Ruminants, Coccidiosis, Habitat Suitability
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Animal Sciences,
Vol.9 No.2,
April
17,
2019
ABSTRACT: Coccidiosis is a gastrointestinal disease caused by
parasites of the genus Eimeria. To produce the ecological niche model for
the geographic distribution of Eimeria species, the maximum entropy
algorithm (MaxEnt) was used and 19 bioclimatic variables with a spatial resolution
of 30 arc-seconds (approximately 1 km2) were downloaded from the
World Climate Database. These were reduced to BIO2,
BIO3, BIO4, BIO7 and BIO15 for each species after examining cross-correlations
among them to account multicollinearity. A jackknife analysis was included to
assess the contribution of five bioclimatic variables and the fit of the model
was evaluated with the area under receiver operating characteristic curve
(AUC). Under a current climate scenario, the jackknife evaluation of the MaxEnt
model showed that BIO4 (temperature seasonality) made
the greatest contribution to the distribution model for 22 Eimeria species; whereas BIO7 (temperature annual range) was the
most important factor that contributes to the distribution model of 10 species. The habitat suitability model based on the maximum entropy theory was
supported by AUC values higher than 0.9 and
predicted that the suitable habitats for different species of Eimeria are present in southern, eastern
and western areas of Mexico. Our study may support future
studies exploring factors that constrain the distribution of Eimeria as well as strategies aimed at
reducing the disease prevalence.