Climate Change will Expand the Potential Habitat of <I>Dichomeris eridantis</I> Meyrick (lepidoptera: Gelechiidae), A Shisham Defoliator, across Uttarakhand: A Maxent Modelling Approach

Deepak Kumar Mahanta; Arun Pratap Singh

doi:10.36808/if/2026/v152i7/171337

Climate Change will Expand the Potential Habitat of Dichomeris eridantis Meyrick (lepidoptera: Gelechiidae), A Shisham Defoliator, across Uttarakhand: A Maxent Modelling Approach

Authors

Deepak Kumar Mahanta Forest Entomology Discipline, Forest Protection Division, ICFRE-Forest Research Institute, Dehradun - 248006, Uttarakhand, India
Arun Pratap Singh Forest Entomology Discipline, Forest Protection Division, ICFRE-Forest Research Institute, Dehradun - 248006, Uttarakhand, India

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.36808/if/2026/v152i7/171337

Keywords:

MaxEnt, Habitat suitability, Climate change, Uttarakhand, Modelling

Abstract

Dichomeris eridantis Meyrick (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae) is a major defoliating pest of Dalbergia sissoo (Shisham) plantations across the Indian subcontinent. This study modelled the current and future habitat suitability of D. eridantis in Uttarakhand, India, using the Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) algorithm implemented via the maxnet package in R. Field surveys conducted in 2025 across Haridwar and Dehradun districts yielded 48 spatially thinned occurrence points. Four bioclimatic variables - BIO1, BIO3, BIO9, and BIO14 - were selected after multicollinearity assessment. The model achieved an excellent AUC of 0.9988. Current high suitability was concentrated in the Terai-Bhabar lowlands of western Uttarakhand. Future projections under MIROC6-based CMIP6 scenarios (SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0, SSP5-8.5) for 2050s, 2070s, and 2090s revealed progressive expansion of suitable habitat, most pronounced under SSP5-8.5 by the 2090s. These findings provide a spatially explicit framework for climate-informed pest surveillance and integrated management of Shisham plantations.

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