Climate change may drive the distribution of tribe Zyginelline pests in China and the Indo‐China Peninsula to shift towards higher latitude river‐mountain systems

Abstract BACKGROUND Tribe Zyginelline leafhoppers can transmit plant viruses and are important pests that affect agriculture, forestry, and animal husbandry, causing serious economic losses. The potential distribution patterns of Zyginellini will change under climate change. Therefore, the best‐performing random forest and maximum entropy models among 12 commonly used ecological niche models, alongside an ensemble model, were selected to predict the changes in habitat suitability distribution of Zyginellini under current and future climate scenarios [represented by two shared socio‐economic pathways (SSPs), namely SSP126 and SSP585, for three periods (2050s, 2070s, and 2090s)] in China and the Indo‐China Peninsula for the first time. RESULTS The results revealed that the distribution of Zyginellini was mainly dominated by minimum temperature of coldest month. Under current and future climate scenarios, Zyginellini was mostly distributed southeast of the 400 mm equivalent precipitation line in China, and Vietnam. Under the future SSP126 scenario, the alert areas will mainly be concentrated in Hunan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Anhui, and Hebei in China, alongside Myanmar and Thailand in the Indo‐China Peninsula. Meanwhile, in the SSP585 scenario, the alert areas in China will increase, whereas there will be little change in the Indo‐China Peninsula. Interestingly, from the current to the future, the cores of Zyginelline distribution occurred around rivers and mountains, and shifted from Guizhou along the Yuanjiang River system to higher latitudes in Hunan. CONCLUSION Zyginellini prefers higher latitude river‐mountain systems under climate change. Our results will contribute to effective pest control strategies and biogeographical research for Zyginellini alongside other Cicadellidae insects. © 2023 Society of Chemical Industry.