Future projection of habitat suitability and potential distribution of main European cereal bugs using MaxEnt modelling

Main European sap‐sucking cereal bugs— Aelia acuminata , Aelia rostrata , Eurygaster maura and Eurygaster austriaca —are significant pests of wheat, causing significant yield loss in wheat and other cereals. Global climate change will modify their distribution areas by changing environmental conditions (e.g., increasing winter temperatures). Information on their dispersal possibilities can help to clarify their future economic importance and damage potential. Species distribution models are tools for predicting the distribution of species and habitat suitability by quantifying the relationship between species' occurrence records and environmental variables and predicting the potential species distributions. In this study, we modelled their current potential and future distribution by MaxEnt and the currently available occurrence data. For the future projections, we chose two scenarios (SSP1‐2.6 and SSP5‐8.5) of the global climate model IPSL‐CM6A‐LR. Our results show that the boundaries of potentially suitable habitats are shifting polewards with an eastern habitat expansion (total of 121.6%–200.6% increase in continental Europe), and areas of high habitat suitability are shifted towards western Europe and the north‐eastern areas of central Europe in both studied periods (2041–2060 and 2061–2080) for all four species. Based on our models, we can conclude that overwintering is a very sensitive period and that the temperature characteristics of the winter period strongly limit their distribution. Our predictive analysis, through modelling the future distribution of pests, not only helps to prepare for the emergence of these species in new areas but also contributes to the implementation of important Integrated Pest Management criteria in cereals.