Geographical distribution datasets for BMSB and two of its parasitoids

Datasets and shapefiles for Halyomorpha halys and two of its parasitoids, Trissolcus mitsukurii and Trissolcus japonicus. These data have been published in a journal paper: Yonow, T., Kriticos, D.J., Ota, N., Avila, G.A., Hoelmer, K.A., Chen, H, Caron, V. (in press). Modelling the potential geographic distribution of two Trissolcus species for the brown marmorated stink bug, Halyomorpha halys. Insects.

Starting in 2019, geo-coded location records for these three species were collated. For the two Trissolcus species, records were obtained from Hymenoptera Online (HOL), from the literature, and from colleagues worldwide. The number of records available for each of these species is still relatively small, so it was not difficult to check these data, and remove any duplicates. HOL records multiple specimens collected at any given site, with each specimen having a unique ID, providing numerous identical location records in the download: this was cleaned up to provide a single occurrence record at any one location.

For H. halys, records were obtained from GBIF (GBIF.org, GBIF Occurrence Download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.w2sym7, 24 August 2020), from HOL, from the literature, and from numerous colleagues who sent their own collection records. The GBIF download also included multiple records at a single location. Duplicates were removed; and similarly, any duplicate records for a single location in the files provided by colleagues were cleaned up so as to only have a single record per geo-coded location.

Once the datasets were cleaned as described above, they were imported into QGIS 3.10 and mapped. Records for the two Trissolcus species did not appear to require further manipulation or adjustment. However, this mapping exercise identified additional issues with the H. halys location records, which had to be resolved. These issues ranged from incorrect coordinates (e.g., a location mapped in a body of water), to possible misidentification, with multiple references suggesting that BMSB does not occur there, to records that were in fact interception records, not records of established populations (e.g., New Zealand, Alaska, England and Sweden, amongst others). These records were deleted from the dataset used for mapping, as the aim is to provide location records of established populations. However, as the GBIF dataset for BMSB is truly enormous, it was not possible to verify each location record. Nonetheless, there do not now appear to be any odd outlying records in the distribution dataset of BMSB presented here.

The shapefiles and datasets provided here are being made available for public use. However, for those of you generating your own maps for presentations or publications, please acknowledge all contributors and sources of information, and collation of the data by Tania Yonow. Full details are provided in the respective “Sources of records” documents below.