Table 1.
Summary of vector occurrence datasets for the period 2000–June 2023 obtained to support habitat suitability modelling. Trap events refer to unique combinations of location (1 km raster grid cell) and year and month of sampling.
Table 2.
Summary of heron and egret occurrence data from selected field observation protocols obtained from Birdlife Australia (BA) and eBird (eB) for the period 2000–June 2023. The counts are unique, complete checklists (“lists”) recording detection of the target species (“present”), any one of the target species (“Any ardeid”), or asserting absence of all. Overall empirical prevalence (“prev.”) is also reported. To form the model dataset, for any cell in any month with records from across the included protocols, a single observation representing presence or absence was randomly drawn in proportion to prevalence per cell per month.
Table 3.
Metadata for spatial covariates.
Fig 1.
Overview of input occurrence data and penalised logistic regression model of relative habitat suitability for selected Culex species in Australia.
A) the distribution of the combined occurrence data for Culex spp; B) the distribution of background occurrence data for Kingdom Animalia; C) the relative ‘importance’ of top seven covariates as calculated by permutation on ensemble fit; D) prediction of relative habitat suitability to the outbreak period (February 2022); E–G) the shape of the marginal relationship between relative habitat suitability and the three most influential predictor variables; H–J) prediction of relative habitat suitability from December 2021 and June 2022, and standard deviation of predictions across the temporal sequence from July 2021 to June 2023. Base maps for A, B and H–J obtained from Australian Bureau of Statistics (CC BY 4.0) https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/standards/australian-statistical-geography-standard-asgs-edition-3/jul2021-jun2026/access-and-downloads/digital-boundary-files.
Fig 2.
Overview of input occurrence data and BRT model of relative habitat suitability for selected ardeid host species in Australia.
A) the distribution of filtered checklists for the period 2000–2023 where the selected species were confirmed sighted or heard; B) the corresponding distribution of comprehensive checklists where those species were neither seen nor heard; C) a summary of the relative influence of the top seven predictor variables submitted to the model; D) prediction of relative habitat suitability to the outbreak period (February 2022); E–G) the shape of the marginal relationship between relative habitat suitability and the three most influential predictor variables; H–J) prediction of relative habitat suitability to December 2021 and June 2022, and standard deviation of predictions across the temporal sequence from July 2021 to June 2023. Base maps for A, B, and H–J obtained from Australian Bureau of Statistics (CC BY 4.0) https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/standards/australian-statistical-geography-standard-asgs-edition-3/jul2021-jun2026/access-and-downloads/digital-boundary-files.
Fig 3.
Prediction of combined habitat suitability for Culex vectors and ardeid hosts of JEV (joint minimum rescaled suitability) for Australia to February 2022.
Point locations indicating likely infection location for confirmed detections of JEV in human cases (squares) and commercial pig premises (circles) published in the public domain to August 31, 2022 [109] used to rescale the original model outputs are overplotted and detailed in panels. Base maps obtained from Australian Bureau of Statistics (CC BY 4.0) https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/standards/australian-statistical-geography-standard-asgs-edition-3/jul2021-jun2026/access-and-downloads/digital-boundary-files.