RT Journal Article
T1 A Maximum Entropy Species Distribution Model to Estimate the Distribution of Bushpigs on Madagascar and Its Implications for African Swine Fever
A1 Díaz Cao, José Manuel
A1 Grossmann, Nárjara
A1 Goodman, Steven M.
A1 Bosch López, Jaime Alfonso
A1 Guis, Helene
A1 Rasamoelina, Miatrana
A1 Rakotoarivony, Rianja
A1 Jori, Ferran
A1 Martínez López, Beatriz
A2 Jordi Casal, 
AB Bushpigs (Potamochoerus larvatus) play a major role in the socio-ecosystem of Madagascar, particularly in rural areas. They are largely hunted by rural populations as a major source of income and protein. They can also represent a potential source of pathogens for domestic animals and people. For example, it is hypothesized that bushpigs might compromise African swine fever (ASF) eradication programs by sporadically transmitting the virus to domestic pigs. However, available knowledge on the distribution of bushpigs in Madagascar is limited. In this study, we estimated the distribution of bushpigs on Madagascar using a species distribution model (SDM). We retrieved 206 sightings of bushpigs in Madagascar during 1990–2016 and predicted the distribution by using 37 climatic, geographic, and agricultural/human variables related to the presence of bushpigs and running a presence-background maximum entropy SDM. Our model identified three main areas with a high suitability for bushpigs: in the north, central-western, and east of the island (AUC = 0.84). The main contributors to the model were the vegetation index (51.3%), percentage of land covered by trees (17.6%), and annual averaged monthly precipitation (12.6%). In addition, we identified areas in central Madagascar with a high density of domestic pigs and a high suitability score for bushpigs. These results may help to identify bushpig areas at the interface with domestic pigs to assess the risk of pathogen transmission and to design ecological assessments, wildlife management studies, or targeted surveillance and research studies related to many bushpig-borne pathogens, such as ASF, which is an endemic problem in the country, as well as zoonotic diseases such as cysticercosis and hepatitis E. Our approach could also be extrapolated to other species of wild swine in other countries.
PB Wiley
SN 1865-1682
SN 1865-1674
YR 2023
FD 2023-02-28
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/107562
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/107562
LA eng
NO Díaz-Cao, J. M., Grossmann, N., Goodman, S., Bosch, J., Guis, H., Rasamoelina, M., Rakotoarivony, R., Jori, F., & Martínez-López, B. (2023). A Maximum Entropy Species Distribution Model to Estimate the Distribution of Bushpigs on Madagascar and Its Implications for African Swine Fever. Transboundary And Emerging Diseases, 2023, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1155/2023/7976252
NO Supplementary Materials: Supplementary Figure 1: Spatial and temporal distributionof the total number of observations of bushpigs originallygathered (n = 206, left) and of the observations included inthe ecological niche model (n = 83, right) after correction forpseudoreplication. Supplementary Figure 2: Te Spearman’scorrelation matrix of the 36 environmental variables selectedfor the study. Supplementary Figure 3: Te map of thedensity of pigs (no. of heads/km 2) in Madagascar. Supple-mentary Figure 4: Variation in the repetition of the MaxEntanalysis resampling diferent presence points: (a) the fnalmodel presented in the study and used as a reference; (b) themap of the average absolute diference in the predictedoutput between each of the 1,000 analyses and the referencemap; and (c) maximum, 95th percentile, and median of thevariation (in %) from the reference map for each of the 1,000iterations. Supplementary Table 1: Variables considered forthe ecological niche model and source. Supplementary Code1: Example of an R code to correct for pseudoreplication.(Supplementary Materials).Data Availability: The data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.
DS Docta Complutense
RD 17 abr 2025