The fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda (J.E. Smith) is a serious agricultural pest. The species originates from the tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas and has now become established in many countries. Its strong migratory ability is the key factor in the rapidly expanding range of S. frugiperda in Africa, where food security faces unprecedented challenges. Exploring potential distributions and niche differentiation of S. frugiperda could provide new insights into the nature of climate niche shifts and our ability to anticipate further invasions. In this study, the occurrence population records (native, source, global, and African) and environmental variables of S. frugiperda were selected to fit ecological niche models (ENMs), with an evaluation of niche conservatism during its invasion of Africa. The results showed that the potential distributions of S. frugiperda are mainly in tropical and subtropical areas in Africa. The climate spaces occupied by its native population and introduced African population broadly overlap. Although, climate niches were conserved during invasion of Africa, many climate spaces were unoccupied, suggesting a high remaining invasion potential in Africa. The selection of the biogeographic realm is an important factor in model construction, and has a great influence on the transferability of the models. Indeed, the global model produced the best performance, following the source and native models.

中文翻译：

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非洲斜纹夜蛾的潜在分布和生态位分化。

秋天的夜蛾，Spodoptera frugiperda（JE Smith）是一种严重的农业害虫。该物种起源于美洲的热带和亚热带地区，现已在许多国家建立。它强大的迁徙能力是非洲Srug frugiperda范围迅速扩大的关键因素，在非洲，粮食安全面临着前所未有的挑战。探索S. frugiperda的潜在分布和生态位分化可以为气候生态位变化的性质以及我们预期进一步入侵的能力提供新的见解。在这项研究中，出现人口记录（原始，源头，全局和非洲）和环境变量草地夜蛾选择适合生态位模型（ENMs）并评估其在非洲入侵期间的生态位保守性。结果表明，S。frugiperda的潜在分布主要在非洲的热带和亚热带地区。其本地人口和引进的非洲人口所占据的气候空间在很大程度上重叠。尽管在入侵非洲期间保护了生态位，但许多气候空间却未被占用，这表明非洲仍有很高的入侵潜力。生物地理领域的选择是模型构建的重要因素，并且对模型的可传递性有很大影响。确实，全局模型遵循源模型和本机模型产生了最佳性能。