Potential Suitability Analysis And Risk Analysis Of Hemiberlesia Pitysophila Takagi In China

Hemiberlesia pitysophila Takagi is one of the most important quarantine pests, whichseriously damages Pinus and causes great economic loss in China. In this research, thepotential suitability and risk of H. pitysophila were systematically analyzed. MaxEnt andGARP models were applied to describe the potential distributions and identify the key factorsaffected the potential distributions of this pest, and used receiver operating characteristic（ROC） curve to evaluate the discrimination capacity of these two models. Referring to theinternational Pest Risk Analysis （PRA） method, we made a comprehensive evaluation of therisk of this pest. This article also presents an identification key that separates this pest form allother armored in this genus which were recorded in Asia. The results would be particularlyimportant to guide management decisions for high risk areas where this pest hasestablished.The main results are as follows:1. Supported both by MaxEnt and GARP, we got the conclusions that the whole areas ofGuangdong Province, Fujian Province, Guangxi Province and Jiangxi Province, north HainanProvince, western Taiwan Province, small parts of Hunan Province, Zhejiang Province,Jiangsu Province, Yunnan Province, Tibet autonomous Region and Hong Kong and Macaospecial administrative Region as highly suitable habitats for H. pitysophila. The GARP modelestimated larger habitats of predicted high suitability for H. pitysophila compared to theMaxEnt, particularly in Hunan, Jiangxi, Hubei, Anhui and Zhejiang provinces.2.The distributions of H. pitysophila were greatly influenced by minimum temperature ofcoldest month （BIO₆）, altitude （alt） and mean temperature of driest quarter （BIO₉）, whilethe terrain factors like slope and aspect had the minimal impacts.3. The result of ROC curve showed that MaxEnt and GARP both performed well basedAUC （area under the curve） value. However, MaxEnt model was more effective than GARPmodel in terms of the accuracy of the predicted result.4.The PRA research was conducted in aspects of the distributions of this pest in China,the potential damage, the economic importance of hosts, the possibility of spread, thedifficulty in risk management. Evaluation result showed H. pitysophila is a high risk pest inChina.