Climate change could fuel urinary schistosomiasis transmission in Africa and Europe

The freshwater snail Bulinus truncatus is an important intermediate host for urogenital schistosomiasis, a tropical disease affecting over 150 million people. Despite its medical importance, uncertainty remains about its global distribution and the potential impacts of climate change on its future spread. Here, we investigate the distribution of B. truncatus, combining the outputs of correlative and mechanistic modelling methods to fully capitalise on both experimental and occurrence data of the species and to create a more reliable distribution forecast than ever constructed. We constructed ensemble correlative species distribution models using 273 occurrence points collected from different sources and a combination of climatic and (bio)physical environmental variables. Additionally, a mechanistic thermal suitability model was constructed, parameterised by recent life-history data obtained through extensive lab-based snail-temperature experiments and supplemented with an extensive lite..., , , # Data from: Climate change could fuel urinary schistosomiasis transmission in Africa and Europe

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.98sf7m0s9](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.98sf7m0s9)

This repo contains primary, intermediate, and output data for correlative and mechanistic models for *Bulinus truncatus*, a schistosomiasis intermedaite host snail. The mechanistic model used is a temperature-dependent intrinsic growth model, calibrated using life history data taken from the literature. The correlative model is an ensemble species distribution model, calibrated using occurrence data from natural history museums and GBIF and bioclimatic variables.

See also the associated publication: van der Deure, T., Maes, T., Huyse, T. & Stensgaard, A-S (2024). Climate change could fuel urinary schistosomiasis transmission in Africa and Europe. *Global Change Biology.*

## Description of the data and file structure

The data is structured in 5 .zip files, which each contain a folder that can be used t...