Evaluation of Species Distribution Model Algorithms For Fine-Scale Container Breeding Mosquito Risk Prediction

摘要

The present work evaluates the use of species distribution model (SDM) algorithms to classify high density of small container Aedes mosquitoes at a fine scale, in the Bermuda islands. Weekly ovitrap data collected by the Health Department of Bermuda (UK) for the years 2006 and 2007 were used for the models. The models evaluated included the following algorithms: Bioclim, Domain, GARP, logistic regression, and MaxEnt. Models were evaluated according to performance and robustness. The area Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve was used to evaluate each model’s performance, and robustness was assessed considering the spatial correlation between classification risks for the two datasets. Relative to the other algorithms, logistic regression was the best model for classifying high risk areas, and the maximum entropy approach (MaxEnt) presented the second best performance. We report the importance of covariables for these two models, and discuss the utility of SDMs for vector control efforts and the potential for the development of scripts that automate the task of creating risk assessment maps.