The New Dominator of the World: Modeling the Global Distribution of the Japanese Beetle under Land Use and Climate Change Scenarios

The spread of invasive species is a threat to global biodiversity. Japanese beetle native Japan, but alien populations this insect occur in North America, and recently, also southern Europe. This was recently included on the list priority European concern, as it highly agricultural pest. Thus, study, we aimed at (i) assessing its current distribution range, identifying areas potential invasion, (ii) predicting using future climatic land-use change scenarios for 2050. We collected occurrences available citizen science platform iNaturalist, combined data with predictors Bayesian framework, specifically integrated nested Laplace approximation, stochastic partial differential equation. found that mainly, positively, driven by percentage croplands, annual range temperature, habitat diversity, human settlements, population density; negatively related distance airports, elevation, mean temperature diurnal wetlands, waters. As result, based conditions, likely 47,970,200 km2, while will from between 53,418,200 59,126,825 according 2050 scenarios. concluded high-risk species, able find suitable conditions colonization several regions around globe, especially light ongoing change. strongly recommend strict biosecurity checks quarantines, well regular pest management surveys, order reduce spread.