Suitability and potential risk associated with new ranges of Anopheles benarrochi (Diptera: Culicidae) under future...

Recently, the term "Geographic Information Systems" (GIS) was added to the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), prompting a series of research initiatives focused on the intersection of GIS and health practices. This research utilized geographic data on the malaria vector A. benarrochi in Peru to: a) estimate its current and potential future distribution in the year 2050 under two extreme climate change scenarios (RCP 2.6 and RCP 8.5); and b) assess the suitability risk associated with changes in area across different regions of the country. We analyzed 574 records of insect presence in tropical border areas using the R programming environment. We selected seven out of 19 bioclimatic variables along with elevation for Maxent modeling, addressing collinearity issues with optimal Variance Inflation Factor (VIF), Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC), and Area Under the Curve (AUC) metrics. We then constructed ecoclimatic indices and area change matrices based on suitability risk. Our findings indicate that, under current conditions, 23.4% of the country has long-term conditions favorable for insect-vector diseases (Ecoclimatic Index, EI=0.31-1). In the more optimistic scenario (RCP 2.6), this area increases to 25.1%. In the extreme scenario (RCP 8.5), the area could expand further to 26.5% of the national territory. While the specifics of increasing and decreasing areas across different risk levels vary among the proposed future scenarios, their overall trends remain consistent. However, RCP 8.5 suggests that a scenario with a high concentration of greenhouse gas emissions would significantly enhance long-term survival conditions, thereby increasing the areas at risk of occurrence by one or more levels. These results will bolster Peru's efforts to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG 3) regarding health and well-being.