Ensemble Distribution Modeling of Aedes aegypti (Diptera: Culicidae) in Costa Rica

Tools for predicting the presence of Aedes aegypti L., a mosquito vector of several arboviruses, can be helpful to evaluate the risk of transmission of dengue and other major vector-borne diseases transmitted by this mosquito species. Here, we employ species distribution models (SDM) to quantify the potential distribution of this mosquito in Costa Rica. We fitted a 30 m resolution ensemble SDM. The ensemble SDM included predictions based on five different algorithms. We used 551 occurrence records and 50 model projections to generate the ensemble SDM. SDM covariates included 5 environmental variables that were selected based on their importance from an original set of 21 layers that included remotely and spatially interpolated locally measured weather variables for the land surface of Costa Rica. Goodness of fit for the ensemble SDM was very high, with a minimum AUC of 0.90. We used the resulting ensemble SDM to evaluate differences in habitat suitability (HS) between commercial plantations and surrounding landscapes, a metric that could be helpful to define risk of dengue transmission.