Climate change affects the rate of insect
invasions as well as the abundance, distribution and
impacts of such invasions on a global scale. Among
the principal analytical approaches to predicting and
understanding future impacts of biological invasions
are Species Distribution Models (SDMs), typically in
the form of correlative Ecological Niche Models
(ENMs). An underlying assumption of ENMs is that
species-environment relationships remain preserved
during extrapolations in space and time, although this
is widely criticised. The semi-mechanistic modelling
platform, CLIMEX, employs a top-down approach
using species ecophysiological traits and is able to
avoid some of the issues of extrapolation, making it
highly applicable to investigating biological invasions
in the context of climate change. The tephritid fruit
flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) comprise some of the most
successful invasive species and serious economic
pests around the world. Here we project 12 tephritid
species CLIMEX models into future climate scenarios
to examine overall patterns of climate suitability and
forecast potential distributional changes for this group.
We further compare the aggregate response of the
group against species-specific responses. We then
consider additional drivers of biological invasions to
examine how invasion potential is influenced by
climate, fruit production and trade indices. Considering
the group of tephritid species examined here,
climate change is predicted to decrease global climate
suitability and to shift the cumulative distribution
poleward. However, when examining species-level
patterns, the predominant directionality of range shifts
for 11 of the 12 species is eastward. Most notably,
management will need to consider regional changes in
fruit fly species invasion potential where high fruit
production, trade indices and predicted distributions of
these flies overlap.