Invasive mosquito species already established in Hungary can pose a significant threat to human and animal health due to their potential role in the pathogen transmission. Researchers from the HUN-REN Ecological Research Centre and the University of Pécs, part of the Invasion Biology Division of the National Laboratory for Health Security, and ELTE have published their results in the D1-ranked scientific journal ‘Journal of Pest Science’. In this study the researchers evaluated the effect of environmental factors reflecting climate, habitat type, food supply, traffic, and interspecific competition on the distribution of three invasive tiger mosquito species in Hungary. They trained species distribution models using citizen science observations and then predicted the potential distribution of the species. The researchers uncovered species-specific patterns and found that different predictor sets were selected for the three different species, however, only predictions for Asian tiger mosquito could be validated with direct trapping data. They concluded that citizen science informed distribution maps can be used to identify environmental predictors that determine the spread of invasive mosquitoes.
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This research was supported by the National Talent Programme of Hungary and the Prime Minister's Office (NTP-NFTÖ-21-B-0288), and by the National Laboratory for Health Security (RRF-2.3.1-21-2022-00006), Centre for Ecological Research, Budapest, Hungary.