Prediction of habitat suitability for ticks

This article offers a personal perspective on the efforts to model the habitat suitability for ticks. A serious effort is being made to provide maps at an adequate resolution that can plot the probability of the presence and even the abundance of tick parasites of humans and that can be used to develop control programs for species with economic interest. Some of the methods being currently evaluated are described together with a summary of the techniques using remotely sensed information to capture the abiotic features of the habitat. Some examples, developed using different methods, are provided for the Mediterranean region and part of the U.S., together with an overview of the performance of these models.