A climate-driven model for predicting the level of Vibrio parahaemolyticus in oysters harvested from Taiwanese farms using elastic net regularized regression

This study aimed at, and developed, a climate-driven model for predicting the abundance of V. parahaemolyticus in oysters based on the local climatological and environmental conditions in Taiwan. The predictive model was constructed using the elastic net machine learning method, and the most influential predictors were evaluated using a permutation-based approach. The abundance of V. parahaemolyticus in oysters in different seasons, time horizons, and representative concentration pathways (RCPs) were predicted using the Elastic-net machine learning model. The results showed: (1) the variation in wind speed or gust wind speed, sea surface temperature, precipitation, and pH influenced the prediction of V. parahaemolyticus concentration in oysters, and (2) the level of V. parahaemolyticus in oysters in Taiwan was projected to be increased by 40–67% in the near future (2046–2065) and by 39–86% by the end of twentieth-century (2081–2100) if the global temperature continues to increase due to climate change. The findings in this study may be used as inputs for quantifying the V. parahaemolyticus infection risk from eating this seafood in Taiwan.