Université Tunis El Manar, Institut de la Recherche Vétérinaire de Tunisie, Tunis, Tunisie.
Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell'Abruzzo e del Molise 'G. Caporale', Teramo, Italy.
Vet Med Sci. 2022 Nov;8(6):2703-2715. doi: 10.1002/vms3.897. Epub 2022 Aug 25.
Tunisia has experienced several West Nile virus (WNV) outbreaks since 1997. Yet, there is limited information on the spatial distribution of the main WNV mosquito vector Culex pipiens suitability at the national level.
In the present study, our aim was to predict and evaluate the potential and current distribution of Cx. pipiens in Tunisia.
To this end, two species distribution models were used, i.e. MaxEnt and Random Forest. Occurrence records for Cx. pipiens were obtained from adult and larvae sampled in Tunisia from 2014 to 2017. Climatic and human factors were used as predictors to model the Cx. pipiens geographical distribution. Mean decrease accuracy and mean decrease Gini indices were calculated to evaluate the importance of the impact of different environmental and human variables on the probability distribution of Cx. pipiens.
Suitable habitats were mainly distributed next to oases, in the north and eastern part of the country. The most important predictor was the population density in both models. The study found out that the governorates of Monastir, Nabeul, Manouba, Ariana, Bizerte, Gabes, Medenine and Kairouan are at highest epidemic risk.
The potential distribution of Cx. pipiens coincides geographically with the observed distribution of the disease in humans in Tunisia. Our study has the potential for driving control effort in the fight against West Nile vector in Tunisia.
自 1997 年以来，突尼斯已经经历了几次西尼罗河病毒（WNV）爆发。然而，关于国家一级主要 WNV 蚊子媒介库蚊适宜性的空间分布的信息有限。
本研究旨在预测和评估突尼斯库蚊的潜在和当前分布。
为此，使用了两种物种分布模型，即最大熵和随机森林。从 2014 年至 2017 年在突尼斯采集的成虫和幼虫中获得了库蚊的发生记录。气候和人为因素被用作预测因子，以模拟库蚊的地理分布。计算平均减少准确性和平均减少基尼指数，以评估不同环境和人为变量对库蚊概率分布的影响的重要性。
适宜栖息地主要分布在绿洲附近，分布在该国北部和东部。两个模型中最重要的预测因子都是人口密度。研究发现，莫纳斯提尔、纳布勒、马努巴、阿里亚纳、比塞大、加贝斯、梅德宁和凯鲁万省面临最高的流行风险。
库蚊的潜在分布在地理上与突尼斯人类疾病的观察分布相吻合。我们的研究有可能在突尼斯控制西尼罗河媒介方面发挥作用。
