A Lack of “Environmental Earth Data” at the Microhabitat Scale Impacts Efforts to Control Invasive Arthropods That Vector Pathogens
Emily L. Pascoe 
1
Department of Medicine and Epidemiology, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA
2
Water Science and Engineering Department, IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, 2611AX Delft, The Netherlands
3
Center Agriculture Food Environment (C3A), University of Trento, Via E. Mach 1, 38010 S. Michele all’Adige, TN, Italy
4
Department of Cellular, Computational and Integrative Biology (CIBIO), University of Trento, Via Sommarive, 14, 38123 Povo, TN, Italy
5
Department of Biodiversity and Molecular Ecology, Fondazione Edmund Mach, Research and Innovation Centre, Via E. Mach 1, 38010 S. Michele all’Adige, TN, Italy
6
Department of Applied Geoinformatics and Spatial Planning, Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcka 129, Praha—Suchdol 16500, Czech Republic
7
Department of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Data 2019, 4(4), 133; https://doi.org/10.3390/data4040133
Received: 27 May 2019 / Revised: 21 August 2019 / Accepted: 19 September 2019 / Published: 29 September 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Overcoming Data Scarcity in Earth Science)
We currently live in an era of major global change that has led to the introduction and range expansion of numerous invasive species worldwide. In addition to the ecological and economic consequences associated with most invasive species, invasive arthropods that vector pathogens (IAVPs) to humans and animals pose substantial health risks. Species distribution models that are informed using environmental Earth data are frequently employed to predict the distribution of invasive species, and to advise targeted mitigation strategies. However, there are currently substantial mismatches in the temporal and spatial resolution of these data and the environmental contexts which affect IAVPs. Consequently, targeted actions to control invasive species or to prepare the population for possible disease outbreaks may lack efficacy. Here, we identify and discuss how the currently available environmental Earth data are lacking with respect to their applications in species distribution modeling, particularly when predicting the potential distribution of IAVPs at meaningful space-time scales. For example, we examine the issues related to interpolation of weather station data and the lack of microclimatic data relevant to the environment experienced by IAVPs. In addition, we suggest how these data gaps can be filled, including through the possible development of a dedicated open access database, where data from both remotely- and proximally-sensed sources can be stored, shared, and accessed.
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Keywords:
arthropod vector; invasive species; microhabitat; species distribution modeling; remote sensing
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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Pascoe, E.L.; Pareeth, S.; Rocchini, D.; Marcantonio, M. A Lack of “Environmental Earth Data” at the Microhabitat Scale Impacts Efforts to Control Invasive Arthropods That Vector Pathogens. Data 2019, 4, 133.
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