Female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infect more than 400 million people each year with dangerous viral pathogens including dengue, yellow fever, Zika and chikungunya. Progress in understanding the biology of mosquitoes and developing the tools to fight them has been slowed by the lack of a high-quality genome assembly. Here we combine diverse technologies to produce the markedly improved, fully re-annotated AaegL5 genome assembly, and demonstrate how it accelerates mosquito science. We anchored physical and cytogenetic maps, doubled the number of known chemosensory ionotropic receptors that guide mosquitoes to human hosts and egg-laying sites, provided further insight into the size and composition of the sex-determining M locus, and revealed copy-number variation among glutathione S-transferase genes that are important for insecticide resistance. Using high-resolution quantitative trait locus and population genomic analyses, we mapped new candidates for dengue vector competence and insecticide resistance. AaegL5 will catalyse new biological insights and intervention strategies to fight this deadly disease vector.

We studied the microwave reflectivity of a structured, near perfectly conducting substrate that was designed to verify the existence of a theoretically proposed new class of surface mode. Measurements of the mode's dispersion curve show that it correctly approaches the predicted asymptotic frequency; the curve also agrees well with that derived from a computer simulation. Modeling of the field distribution on resonance provides evidence of strong localization of the electric field at the interface and substantial power flow along the interface, thus verifying the surface plasmon-like nature of the mode.

Though anthropogenic impacts are often considered harmful to species, human modifications to the landscape can actually create novel niches to which other species can adapt. These “domestication” processes are especially important in the context of arthropod disease vectors, where ecological overlap of vector and human populations may lead to epidemics. Here, we present results of a global genetic study of one such species, the dengue and yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti, whose evolutionary history and current distribution have been profoundly shaped by humans. We used DNA sequences of four nuclear genes and 1504 SNP markers developed with RAD-tag sequencing to test the hypothesis that Ae. aegypti originated in Africa, where a domestic form arose and spread throughout the tropical and subtropical world with human trade and movement. Results confirmed African ancestry of the species, and supported a single subspeciation event leading to the pantropical domestic form. Additionally, genetic data strongly supported the hypothesis that human trade routes first moved domestic Ae. aegypti out of Africa into the New World, followed by a later invasion from the New World into Southeast Asia and the Pacific. These patterns of domestication and invasion are relevant to many species worldwide, as anthropogenic forces increasingly impact evolutionary processes.

Identifying our most distant animal relatives has emerged as one of the most challenging problems in phylogenetics. This debate has major implications for our understanding of the origin of multicellular animals and of the earliest events in animal evolution, including the origin of the nervous system. Some analyses identify sponges as our most distant animal relatives (Porifera-sister hypothesis), and others identify comb jellies (Ctenophora-sister hypothesis). These analyses vary in many respects, making it difficult to interpret previous tests of these hypotheses. To gain insight into why different studies yield different results, an important next step in the ongoing debate, we systematically test these hypotheses by synthesizing 15 previous phylogenomic studies and performing new standardized analyses under consistent conditions with additional models. We find that Ctenophora-sister is recovered across the full range of examined conditions, and Porifera-sister is recovered in some analyses under narrow conditions when most outgroups are excluded and site-heterogeneous CAT models are used. We additionally find that the number of categories in site-heterogenous models is sufficient to explain the Porifera-sister results. Furthermore, our cross-validation analyses show CAT models that recover Porifera-sister have hundreds of additional categories and fail to fit significantly better than site-heterogeneous models with far fewer categories. Systematic and standardized testing of diverse phylogenetic models suggests that we should be skeptical of Porifera-sister results both because they are recovered under such narrow conditions and because the models in these conditions fit the data no better than other models that recover Ctenophora-sister.

Aedes aegypti, the major vector of dengue, yellow fever, chikungunya, and Zika viruses, remains of great medical and public health concern. There is little doubt that the ancestral home of the species is Africa. This mosquito invaded the New World 400‐500 years ago and later, Asia. However, little is known about the genetic structure and history of Ae. aegypti across Africa, as well as the possible origin(s) of the New World invasion. Here, we use ~17,000 genome‐wide single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to characterize a heretofore undocumented complex picture of this mosquito across its ancestral range in Africa. We find signatures of human‐assisted migrations, connectivity across long distances in sylvan populations, and of local admixture between domestic and sylvan populations. Finally, through a phylogenetic analysis combined with the genetic structure analyses, we suggest West Africa and especially Angola as the source of the New World's invasion, a scenario that fits well with the historic record of 16th‐century slave trade between Africa and Americas.