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1. Emerging infectious diseases can have serious consequences for wildlife populations, ecosystem structure and biodiversity. Predicting the spatial patterns and potential impacts of diseases in free‐ranging wildlife are therefore important for planning, prioritizing and implementing research and management actions.

2. We developed spatial models of environmental suitability (ES) for infection with the pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, which causes the most significant disease affecting vertebrate biodiversity on record, amphibian chytridiomycosis. We applied relatively newly developed methods for modelling ES (Maxent) to the first comprehensive, continent‐wide data base (comprising >10000 observations) on the occurrence of infection with this pathogen and employed novel methodologies to deal with common but rarely addressed sources of model uncertainty.

3. We used ES to (i) predict the …