ИСТИНА

The study assesses an aggregate of environmental and socio-economic conditions associated with the historical distribution of two re-emerging zoonotic diseases – anthrax and leptospirosis – in the Russian Arctic. A database of climate indicators obtained by interpolation of weather stations’ observations within the study area was created to support the study. An ensemble of climate models under the CMIP5 experiment was applied to project those indicators by 2100 assuming no change in human behavior with regard to greenhouse emissions (RCP8.5 scenario). We applied Maximum Entropy ecological niche modelling approach (Maxent) and used officially recorded historical burials of animals died from anthrax as presence locations. Maxent model suggested a most significant influence of soil type and pH, yearly maximum and mean air temperatures, annual precipitation at temperatures below 0°C and vegetation intensity on the suitability to Bacillus anthracis. Modeling with projected climate data demonstrated a dramatic increase of suitability across the most part of the study area, resulted from the rise of air temperatures and consequent thawing of permafrost that enables release of conserved anthrax soil foci. We used livestock leptospirosis data for 2000 – 2019 and employed the Forest-based Classification and Regression algorithm to explore the relationships between the cumulative leptospirosis incidence per unit area by municipal districts (G-rate) and a set of socio-economic, landscape, and climatic factors. Socio-economic variables related to human and livestock population densities, and agricultural development were found to be the most important, while climate and landscape factors demonstrated a significantly lower influence with nearly similar contributions of mean yearly precipitation and air temperature, and number of days with above-zero temperatures. A projection using the future climate data suggested an up to 4.4-fold climate-related increase in the G-rate. The findings may be used to improvement of the regional system of anti-epizootic measures with regard to the studied diseases. This research was performed according to the Development program of the Interdisciplinary Scientific and Educational School of M.V.Lomonosov Moscow State University «Future Planet and Global Environmental Change». The study was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Researches (Research Project 18-05-60037).