ABSTRACT Aleurothrixus floccosus is an exotic pest that poses a serious threat to sweet orange, both through direct and indirect damage. Climate change is one of the most important factors that facilitate the distribution and occurrence of species. We focused on the Ethiopian context because there was no localized data for this invasive pest. Thus, the Maxent (Maximum Entropy) model was used to predict the potential distribution of A. floccosus under the current and future climatic situations in Ethiopia. The occurrence data were obtained from field surveys, and bioclimatic variables (bio1–bio19) were loaded from the Global Climate Database. Among bioclimatic variables (bio1–bio19), precipitation of the driest month (bio14), precipitation of the warmest quarter (bio18), precipitation of the wettest month (bio13), precipitation seasonality (bio15), mean diurnal range (bio2), isothermality (bio3), and temperature annual range (bio7) were key predictors of A. floccosus distribution, with contributions of 28.2%, 22.9%, 21.8%, 17.7%, 4.7%, 3.9%, and 0.8%, respectively. Very highly suitable areas for A. floccosus are mainly intense in the Central Ethiopia Regional State, Gambela Region, Dire Dawa city, Harari Region, and large parts of the Oromia Region. Models from RCP2.6, RCP6.0, and RCP8.5 (2050 and 2070) predict that very highly suitable areas for A. floccosus increase from 0.32% to 3.52% under future climate conditions. Unsuitable, poorly, moderately, highly, and very highly suitable areas for A. floccosus covered 40.40%, 22.80%, 20.90%, 10.60%, and 5.30%, respectively, of the total Ethiopian landmass. However, further studies are needed to assess other possible factors affecting A. floccosus distribution.
Beyene et al. (Mon,) studied this question.