Projecting the Potential Distribution Areas of Lutzomyia verrucarum and Lutzomyia peruensis using MaxEnt under Climate Change and Predicting the Risk of Carrion’s Disease

Carrion’s disease is a vector-borne disease caused by Bartonella bacilliformis . The phlebotomine sand flies Lutzomyia peruensis and Lutzomyia verrucarum are the determined illness vectors. Some climate parameters, such as precipitation and temperature have affected the development and reproduction of sand flies. In addition, other climate related factors that influence the activity of sand flies have also been included in the model. This study used the maximum entropy (MaxEnt) model to evaluate the contribution of climate parameters, and the current and future potential geographical distributions of these two species in the world were estimated. ArcGIS 10.5 software was used to visualize the results, and R 4.2.2 software was used to select the optimal model parameters. We found that temperature seasonality and altitude contributed the most to the distribution of L. verrucarum , while isothermality and altitude contributed the most to L. peruensis . Under current climate conditions, the highly suitable areas of the two species are mainly distributed in the Andes region of South America and middle eastern Africa. Climate change of different intensities will mainly have a negative effect on the worldwide suitable areas of sand flies in the future. In addition necessary monitoring and preventive measures should be taken in high-risk areas with vectors. In addition to vectors, the population also plays an important role in the occurrence of Carrion’s disease, indicating that in areas with high population density, we should pay more attention to the prevention and control of Carrion’s disease.