Suitable Habitats of Two Tea Pests for Management Guidance in China Under Climate Change

Driven by the human demand for tea beverages, tea production has expanded worldwide. Tea production in China, the world’s largest tea producer, is constrained by Dendrothrips minowai and Matsumurasca (Matsumurasca) onukii. Various management measures for controlling these pests have been developed, but their implementation requires knowledge of the pest distribution, which is currently insufficient. Therefore, precise management of these pests is a major challenge. Using optimized MaxEnt models for the distributions of the two pests across the current and future timeframes, we predicted the overlap of their suitable habitats. The central and southern provinces of China were identified as the primary suitable habitats of both pests at the current time. The suitable habitats will diverge in the future, with D. minowai habitats declining by 29.70–61.90% and M. onukii habitats increasing by 8.05–43.62%. These results demonstrate species-specific responses to climate change. Despite a decrease in overlap areas, the current and future overlap areas consistently coincide with some major tea-growing areas such as Guizhou, Yunnan, Hunan, and Fujian. The predicted overlap areas can aid the identification of priority areas, optimization of resource allocation, and dynamic adjustment of management measures, improving the precision and efficiency of managing the two pests.