West Nile Virus (WNV) is an arbovirus that infects birds and is spread by Culex mosquitoes. West Nile Virus has been detected in over 250 bird species, with morbidity and mortality of avian hosts varying significantly between clades. Changing climate, land use and biodiversity loss will influence the distribution of both avian hosts and mosquitoes, impacting the spread of vector-borne diseases. To identify potential hotspots of WNV outbreaks, we used MaxEnt species niche distribution modeling and ArcGIS Pro to model the habitat distribution of eleven avian host species of WNV of varying vertebrate host competence indices throughout the state of Arizona.  We included eleven environmental and climatic variables influencing habitat use and distribution, such as temperature, rainfall, normalized difference vegetation index, and elevation, and then projected those likely suitable habitats with four Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) under two different climate models. Understanding how the distributions of hosts shift under different climatic scenarios will allow both wildlife conservation and public health professionals to identify potential transmission ‘hotspots’ and perform proactive measures to mitigate future outbreaks.  

This work has been presented at The Wildlife Society's Annual Conference (October 2024, Baltimore, MD), The Arizona and New Mexico The Wildlife Society Joint Annual Meeting (February 2025, Albuquerque, NM), and The Wildlife Disease Association international conference (July 2025, Victoria, B.C., Canada).  Expected to be submitted for publication by the end of 2025.