Summary1. When invasive species are first detected in a new environment there is often a demand for information about the potential for the organism to spread and create impacts. Uraba lugens (Lepidoptera: Nolidae) is an Australian native moth that has invaded New Zealand in what are presumed to be two separate episodes. After U. lugens was found in Auckland in 2001 a climex ™ model was prepared to gauge the potential for the moth to spread and inflict damage in New Zealand. Inconsistencies in fitting model parameters to the then known native distribution, indicated that the known native distribution was probably incomplete, and that the unknown part of its range was critical for defining its likely range limits in New Zealand. 2. A synthetic sex pheromone trapping survey was used to ascertain the altitudinal and upper rainfall range limits of U. lugens in part of its native range in Australia. The survey extended the known range of U. lugens into higher-altitude and higher-rainfall zones of Tasmania. We used the expanded distribution information to refine a climex model, and to project the climate suitability for U. lugens with particular emphasis on New Zealand. 3. The projected climatic suitability of New Zealand indicates that the area likely to be at risk of invasion by U. lugens is considerably more extensive than was indicated from its historical distribution records in Australia. It now includes all the eucalypt forestry areas. Similarly, the global potential distribution covers the major eucalypt forestry regions of the world. 4. The minimum heat sum necessary to complete a generation for U. lugens that was associated with its range limits was considerably lower than that predicted by average development rates gained from constant temperature and daylength studies. Possible explanations for this anomaly are discussed. 5. Synthesis and applications . The lack of suitable data on the distribution of organisms is perhaps the single most common challenge for ecological climate modellers. Trapping along climatic gradients with a synthetic pheromone lure offers a cheap, rapid means of ascertaining the climatic distribution of suitable high profile insects.

Kriticos DJ,Watt MS, Potter KJB, Manning LK,Alexander NS &Tallent‐Halsell N (2011). Managing invasive weeds under climate change: considering the current and potential future distribution of Buddleja davidii. Weed Research 51, 85–96. Summary Buddleja davidii is both a prized garden ornamental and an invasive shrub that rapidly colonises disturbed ground. Originally from China, B. davidii has been widely distributed by horticulturalists and has subsequently invaded much of Europe and New Zealand, and to a lesser degree the Americas and Australia. The present and future climate suitability for B. davidii was assessed using a process‐oriented climate suitability model. There appears to be a considerable scope for further invasion, with the most suitable areas occurring adjacent to existing naturalised populations in the north‐eastern United States, north‐eastern Europe, south‐eastern Australia and south‐eastern New Zealand. Under future climates, the potential distribution and climate suitability for B. davidii increases most noticeably in the northern United States and southern Canada, northern and eastern Europe, and to a lesser extent in the south‐western part of the South Island of New Zealand. Elsewhere, there are projected poleward range shifts (South America) or range contractions out of subtropical areas (Africa and Australia). Climate‐based potential distribution models can help adapt weed management programmes to expected climate changes by: (i) classifying areas for the different types of weed management, (ii) supporting strategic control initiatives to prevent the spread of a weed, (iii) informing the reallocation of resources away from controlling a weed where climate suitability is expected to diminish in the future and (iv) identifying opportunities for relatively inexpensive preventative management to be applied to minimise future weed impacts.

BackgroundThis paper aims to illustrate the steps needed to produce reliable correlative modelling for arthropod vectors, when process-driven models are unavailable. We use ticks as examples because of the (re)emerging interest in the pathogens they transmit. We argue that many scientific publications on the topic focus on: (i) the use of explanatory variables that do not adequately describe tick habitats; (ii) the automatic removal of variables causing internal (statistical) problems in the models without considering their ecological significance; and (iii) spatial pattern matching rather than niche mapping, therefore losing information that could be used in projections.MethodsWe focus on extracting information derived from modelling the environmental niche of ticks, as opposed to pattern matching exercises, as a first step in the process of identifying the ecological determinants of tick distributions. We perform models on widely reported species of ticks in Western Palaearctic to derive a set of covariates, describing the climate niche, reconstructing a Fourier transformation of remotely-sensed information.ResultsWe demonstrate the importance of assembling ecological information that drives the distribution of ticks before undertaking any mapping exercise, from which this kind of information is lost. We also show how customised covariates are more relevant to tick ecology than the widely used set of “Bioclimatic Indicators” (“Biovars”) derived from interpolated datasets, and provide programming scripts to easily calculate them. We demonstrate that standard pre-tailored vegetation categories also fail to describe tick habitats and are best used to describe absence rather than presence of ticks, but could be used in conjunction with the climate based suitability models.ConclusionsWe stress the better performance of climatic covariates obtained from remotely sensed information as opposed to interpolated explanatory variables derived from ground measurements which are flawed with internal issues affecting modelling performance. Extracting ecological conclusions from modelling projections is necessary to gain information about the variables driving the distribution of arthropod vectors. Mapping exercises should be a secondary aim in the study of the distribution of health threatening arthropods.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13071-016-1474-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.