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Niche modeling predictions of the potential distribution of Marmota himalayana, the host animal of plague in Yushu County of Qinghai
- Source :
- BMC Public Health, BMC Public Health, Vol 16, Iss 1, Pp 1-10 (2016)
- Publication Year :
- 2015
-
Abstract
- Background After the earthquake on 14, April 2010 at Yushu in China, a plague epidemic hosted by Himalayan marmot (Marmota himalayana) became a major public health concern during the reconstruction period. A rapid assessment of the distribution of Himalayan marmot in the area was urgent. The aims of this study were to analyze the relationship between environmental factors and the distribution of burrow systems of the marmot and to predict the distribution of marmots. Methods Two types of marmot burrows (hibernation and temporary) in Yushu County were investigated from June to September in 2011. The location of every burrow was recorded with a global positioning system receiver. An ecological niche model was used to determine the relationship between the burrow occurrence data and environmental variables, such as land surface temperature (LST) in winter and summer, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) in winter and summer, elevation, and soil type. The predictive accuracies of the models were assessed by the area under the curve of the receiving operator curve. Results The models for hibernation and temporary burrows both performed well. The contribution orders of the variables were LST in winter and soil type, NDVI in winter and elevation for the hibernation burrow model, and LST in summer, NDVI in summer, soil type and elevation in the temporary burrow model. There were non-linear relationships between the probability of burrow presence and LST, NDVI and elevation. LST of 14 and 23 °C, NDVI of 0.22 and 0.60, and 4100 m were inflection points. A substantially higher probability of burrow presence was observed in swamp soil and dark felty soil than in other soil types. The potential area for hibernation burrows was 5696 km2 (37.7 % of Yushu County), and the area for temporary burrows was 7711 km2 (51.0 % of Yushu County). Conclusions The results suggested that marmots preferred warm areas with relatively low altitudes and good vegetation conditions in Yushu County. Based on these results, the present research is useful in understanding the niche selection and distribution pattern of marmots in this region.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
China
NDVI
030231 tropical medicine
Marmot
Soil type
010603 evolutionary biology
01 natural sciences
Models, Biological
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index
03 medical and health sciences
Soil
0302 clinical medicine
Earthquakes
Medicine
Animals
Epidemics
Niche modeling
Ecosystem
Probability
Ecological niche
LST
Plague
biology
business.industry
lcsh:Public aspects of medicine
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
Temperature
lcsh:RA1-1270
Marmota himalayana
Vegetation
Burrow
biology.organism_classification
Environmental niche modelling
Marmota
Geographic Information Systems
Physical geography
Seasons
business
GDEM
Research Article
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 14712458
- Volume :
- 16
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- BMC public health
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....9d865a1cdc22061ba29ebf6533e8a244