RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Influence of human population density on spatial distribution patterns of environmental suitability for triatomine vectors of Chagas disease
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 717348
DO 10.1101/717348
A1 Anderson A. Eduardo
A1 Lucas A. B. O. Santos
A1 Mônica C. Rebouças
A1 Pablo A. Martinez
YR 2019
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/07/28/717348.abstract
AB Previous work on Chagas Disease disease at large spatial scales has not explored how interaction with humans can affect projections for geographical distribution of environmental suitability of vector species. Here, we compare niche-based species distribution models with climatic variables as predictors (SDMclim) and with climatic variables + human population density (SDMHuman). Our results show that accounting for human population density helps refine the models to finer geographical scales. Also, different spatial patterns of accumulated environmental suitability were obtained by SDMclim and SDMHuman. Moreover, projections were more accurate for SDMHuman than for SDMclim. Our results show that considering human populations in SDMs for epidemiologically relevant triatomiane species can improve our understanding of macroecology and biogeography of environmental suitability for vectors of Chagas disease.