Mao Mengfei, Chen Siqi, Ke Zengyuan, Qian Zengqiang, Xu Yijuan
Red Imported Fire Ant Research Center, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China.
College of Life Sciences, Shaanxi Normal University, 620 Western Chang'an Street, Xi'an 710119, China.
Insects. 2022 Nov 1;13(11):1008. doi: 10.3390/insects13111008.
Invasive ants are some of the most destructive species in ecosystems and can have serious ecological and socioeconomic impacts. The little fire ant, , is native to Central and South America and was listed as one of the 100 most threatening major invasive organisms in the world by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The presence of was first reported on the Chinese mainland in January 2022, but its distribution in China is still unclear. In this study, MaxEnt was used to predict the potential distribution of in China based on known distribution points and climatic variables. The prediction results showed that most of the area south of the Yangtze River is potentially suitable for , and temperature is the main factor affecting its distribution. The contemporary total suitable living area of is 1,954,300 km, accounting for 20.36% of China's total land area. Further attention should be given to the potential impact of invasions, and effective measures should be taken to eliminate the introduced population in China.
入侵蚂蚁是生态系统中最具破坏性的物种之一，会产生严重的生态和社会经济影响。小火蚁原产于中美洲和南美洲，被国际自然保护联盟（IUCN）列为世界上100种最具威胁的主要入侵生物之一。2022年1月首次在中国内地报告发现小火蚁，但它在中国的分布情况仍不清楚。在本研究中，利用最大熵模型（MaxEnt）基于已知分布点和气候变量预测小火蚁在中国的潜在分布。预测结果表明，长江以南的大部分地区可能适合小火蚁生存，温度是影响其分布的主要因素。小火蚁目前的总适宜生存面积为195.43万平方千米，占中国陆地总面积的20.36%。应进一步关注小火蚁入侵的潜在影响，并采取有效措施清除中国境内已引入的种群。
