A Global-Scale Ecological Niche Modeling of the Emerging Pathogen Serratia marcescens to Aid in its Spatial Ecology

Serratia marcescens is a big emerging concern for human health and coral biodiversity. Spatial ecology and the influencing factors on pathogen ecology, however, remain unknown. The study forms the first global risk assessment of S. marcescens. MaxEnt niche modeling was applied using two biotic and sixteen abiotic variables. The world was classified into five risk-level categories based on the pathogen ecology, and the world population exposed to S. marcescens infection was then quantified. The prepared model showed an area under the curve value of 0.918 ± 0.028, implying excellent prediction ability. The highly and moderately suitable areas occupied around 0.52% and 17.9% of the total global land area. The order of probability of having S. marcescens-related infections was Asia > North America > South America > Europe > Africa > Australia. Human population density and temperature were the most influential factors in the distribution. The moderate to high transmission risk zones contained 0.20% (1.61 billion people) of the human population. In brief, these results give novel insights into its spatial ecology and provide the risk maps that can be utilized to plan targeted strategic control measures against future invasions of this emerging pathogen.