Using epidemiological survey data to infer geographic distributions of leishmaniasis vector species.
An important aspect of tropical medicine is analysis of geographic aspects of risk of disease transmission, which for lack of detailed public health data must often be reduced to an understanding of the distributions of critical species such as vectors and reservoirs. We examine the applicability of a new technique, ecological niche modeling, to the challenge of understanding distributions of such species based on municipalities in the state of São Paulo in which a group of 5 Lutzomyia sandfly species have been recorded. The technique, when tested based on independent occurrence data, yielded highly significant predictions of species' distributions; minimum sample sizes for effective predictions were around 40 municipalities.
Peterson
A Townsend
AT
Natural History Museum, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045, USA. town@ku.edu
Pereira
Ricardo Scachetti
RS
Neves
Vera Fonseca de Camargo
VF
D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D001938:Brazil; D006801:Humans; D007303:Insect Vectors / Q000145:classification; D007891:Leishmania; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011156:Population Density; D011576:Psychodidae / Q000145:classification; D019371:Topography, Medical