Artvin ve Çevresinde Çam Kese Böceği Riskinin Geleceğe Yönelik Modellenmesi

In recent decades, climate change has been receiving a lot of attention from researchers as it is believed to be proceeding at an extraordinary rate during the last 1,300 years and many studies have attempted to document and predict its environmental effects. Eastern winter pine processionary moth (PPM), Thaumetopoea wilkinsoni (Lepidoptera, Notodontidae), an economically important pest of pines in the Eastern Mediterranean Basin, distributed through almost all coastal regions within Turkey. Even though, its European sister species, T. pityocampa is known to be an aggressive invader under global warming in Europe and proved to expand its range towards northern latitudes; there is a lack of knowledge about species current and future status through Turkey, especially Artvin and adjacent regions (Eastern Black Sea Region) where it has not have much effect yet. In this study, we aimed to predict PPM’s current and future distribution through Artvin and adjacent regions by using Maximum Entropy Modeling (Maxent) software. We used 65 sampling points in conjunction with 7 climatic variables that were least inter-correlated and with greatest significant contribution to the distribution model. As the statistical tests showed that the fit of the generated model is good, we further carried on using this model for future predictions. Our results indicated that PPM would expand its range towards Artvin and adjacent regions. Even though, currently this region is not under risk of PPM invasion, models suggest that future climatic conditions might trigger PPM invasion in near future - by 2050 - 2080.