African swine fever (ASF) is a highly contagious disease affecting wild and domestic pigs, characterised by severe haemorrhagic symptoms and high mortality rates. Originally confined to Sub-Saharan Africa, ASF virus genotype II has spread to Europe since 2014, mainly affecting Eastern Europe, and progressing through wild boar migrations and human action. In January 2022, the first case of ASF, due to genotype II, was reported in North-western Italy, in a wild boar carcass. Thereafter, numerous positive wild boars were identified, indicating an expanding wild epidemic, severely threatening Italian pig farming and trade. This study focused on the mapping of the suitable habitats for wild boars and their potential dispersal corridors in Northern Italy, using species distribution models and landscape connectivity analysis. The resulting maps identified areas with higher likelihood of wild boar presence, highlighting their preferential pathways crossing Northern Italy. The distribution of ASF positive wild boars along the major corridors predicted by the model suggests the obtained maps as valuable support to decision-makers to improve ASF surveillance and carcass early detection, aiming for eradication. The applied framework can be easily replicated in other regions and countries.
Copyright: © 2025 Faustini et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.