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Assessment of suitability for Oncomelania hupensis snail habitats in China under climate changes from 1990 to 2020
LI Qin, GUO Suying, XIANG Jiangling, LI Yinlong, CHEN Xianfa, ZHANG Lijuan, LI Shizhu, ZHOU Xiaonong, XU Jing
Chinese Journal of Schistosomiasis Control
2025, 37 (6 ):
580-590, 600.
Objective To analyze the changes in the suitability of Oncomelania hupensis snail habitats in China and to identify climatic factors that significantly affect the suitability in China from 1990 to 2020, so as to provide insights into formulation of schistosomiasis control measures. Methods All schistosomiasis⁃endemic villages recorded in the Information Management System for Parasitic Disease Control of Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention were selected as study areas, and national O. hupensis snail data in China from 2011 to 2021 were collected, while national O. hupensis snail data in China from 1990 to 1993 were collected from the Annual Report of National Schistosomiasis Epidemiological Observation Points in China. The temperature and cumulative precipitation during the spring active period (between April and June), summer dormancy period (between July and August), autumn active period (between September and October), and hibernation period (between December and February of the next year), as well as the maximum temperature of the warmest month, minimum temperature of the coldest month, temperature annual range, annual precipitation, precipitation of the wettest month, precipitation of the driest month, precipitation seasonality, precipitation of the wettest quarter, precipitation of the driest quarter, precipitation of the warmest quarter, and precipitation of the coldest quarter were calculated using historical monthly meteorological data from the WorldClim database during the same period of O. hupensis snail surveys, and annual mean temperature, isothermality, mean diurnal temperature range, temperature seasonality, mean temperature of the wettest quarter, mean temperature of the driest quarter, mean temperature of the warmest quarter, and mean temperature of the coldest quarter were calculated using daily mean surface air temperature (2 m height) data from the ECMWF Reanalysis version 5 (ERA5) hourly data database. Four topographic variables, namely elevation, slope, terrain and distance to water bodies, were obtained from the Resource and Environmental Science Data Platform of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) was obtained from the Geographic Remote Sensing Ecological Network Platform. Soil characteristic data were obtained from the harmonized world soil database, and the long⁃term series population density variable was estimated by previous studies based on Global Human Settlement Layer⁃Population and WorldPop databases. Data were processed to a 1 km2 resolution via resampling. An ecological niche model for O. hupensis snails was constructed using machine learning models and O. hupensis snail breeding data in China from 2011 to 2021, and the suitability of O. hupensis snail habitats was estimated and compared during the study periods between 2018 and 2020 and between 1990 and 1993, to analyze the changes in the suitability of O. hupensis snail habitats. O. hupensis snail data from both periods were calculated separately and analyzed using five models, including neural networks, support vector machines (SVM), naive Bayes, classification and regression tree (CART), and extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) models, and the sensitivity, specificity, and area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) of models were calculated. The Shapley Additive Explanations (SHAPs) algorithm was employed to calculate the mean contribution of each variable to the predictions of models. Partial dependence plots (PDPs) were constructed using the pdp package to analyze the response of O. hupensis snail habitat suitability to individual variables. Based on historical climatic data and current non⁃climatic data, a counterfactual scenario map was generated using models trained with 2011—2015 datasets. The counterfactual simulated results were compared with the actual O. hupensis snail habitat suitability from 2018 to 2020 to quantitatively assess the effect of climate changes on the suitability of O. hupensis snail habitats from 1990 to 2020. Results The areas of O. hupensis snail habitats decreased from 3 726.641 km2 in 2011 to 3 562.876 km2 in 2015 in China, and then rebounded to 3 692.687 km2 in 2021. The XGBoost model exhibited an AUC of 0.983, a sensitivity of 0.993 and a specificity of 0.915, which was selected for subsequent analyses. Through SHAPs calculation combined with PDPs analysis, the four most significant climatic factors affecting the suitability of O. hupensis snail habitats in China included mean temperature of the coldest quarter [1.489 ℃, 95% confidence interval (CI): (1.105 ℃, 1.875 ℃)], precipitation of the wettest quarter [0.706 mm, 95% CI: (0.275 mm, 1.138 mm)], mean diurnal temperature range [0.610 ℃, 95% CI: (0.423 ℃, 0.797 ℃)], and precipitation of the warmest quarter [0.388 mm, 95% CI: (0.199 mm, 0.577 mm)]. Modeling results indicated that the areas with a reduced suitability of O. hupensis snail habitats accounted for 12.201% [95% CI: (11.588%, 12.830%)] of total areas along the Yangtze River basin from 1990 to 2020, while the areas of expanded O. hupensis snail suitable habitats in eastern coastal and high⁃latitude regions accounted for 10.009% [95% CI: (9.380%, 10.637%)] of total areas of the Yangtze River basin. Substantial expansions of O. hupensis snail suitable habitats were found along the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, with a 68.233% [95% CI: (67.463%, 69.002%)] increase in Zhejiang Province and 57.648% [95% CI: (56.878%, 58.417%)] increase in Jiangsu Province, respectively. The middle reaches of the Yangtze River experienced an overall reduction in the suitability of O. hupensis snail habitats, with a 45.784% [95% CI: (45.015%, 46.554%)] reduction in Anhui Province and 33.307% [95% CI: (32.538%, 34.077%)] reduction in Hubei Province, respectively. The areas with an increased suitability of O. hupensis snail habitats accounted for 2.461% to 6.166% of the total provincial areas in two provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and in Guangdong Province, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Fujian Province, respectively, while the areas with a decreased suitability accounted for 0.890% to 11.891% of the total provincial areas, respectively. In addition, counterfactual analysis revealed the areas with an increased suitability of O. hupensis snail habitats due to climate changes along the Yangtze River basin accounted for 20.738% [95% CI: (19.968%, 21.507%)] of the total basin areas, and the area with a reduced suitability accounted for 4.678% [95% CI: (3.909%, 5.448%)]. Conclusions The areas with a decreased and increased suitability for O. hupensis snail habitats were roughly equal in size in China from 1990 to 2020, with the areas with a decreased suitability mainly concentrated in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River region, and the areas with an increased suitability mainly located in the eastern coastal areas and high⁃latitude regions. Climate change is the primary factor driving the increased suitability of O. hupensis snail habitats in China.
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