How will mosquitoes adapt to climate warming?

Abstract

The potential for adaptive evolution to enable species persistence under a changing climate is one of the most important questions for understanding impacts of future climate change. Climate adaptation may be particularly likely for short-lived ectotherms, including many pest, pathogen, and vector species. For these taxa, estimating climate adaptive potential is critical for accurate predictive modeling and public health preparedness. Here, we demonstrate how a simple theoretical framework used in conservation biology—evolutionary rescue models—can be used to investigate the potential for climate adaptation in these taxa, using mosquito thermal adaptation as a focal case. Synthesizing current evidence, we find that short mosquito generation times, high population growth rates, and strong temperature-imposed selection favor thermal adaptation. However, knowledge gaps about the extent of phenotypic and genotypic variation in thermal tolerance within mosquito populations, the environmental sensitivity of selection, and the role of phenotypic plasticity constrain our ability to make more precise estimates. We describe how common garden and selection experiments can be used to fill these data gaps. Lastly, we investigate the consequences of mosquito climate adaptation on disease transmission using Aedes aegypti-transmitted dengue virus in Northern Brazil as a case study. The approach outlined here can be applied to any disease vector or pest species and type of environmental change.

Origin and status of Culex pipiens mosquito ecotypes

“…Understanding the environmental determinants of Cx. pipiens diversity is important because it can help us predict changes under future climate and land use regimes 91 . It is widely accepted that the geographic distributions of many animals and plants, including mosquitoes, will shift as the planet warms 92,93 .…”

Exploring the thermal limits of malaria transmission in the western Himalaya

“…For example, a surge in temperature has shifted timing and length of breeding season in birds (Hällfors et al, 2020), leading to mismatch with optimal resource abundance, which is vital for reproductive success. For short-lived ectotherms, the spread of mosquito species to new habitats in high elevations, short generation times, high population growth rates, and strong temperature-imposed selection could lead to fast adaptation (Couper et al, 2021). In the western Himalayan context, the thermodynamic model showed that the EIP days do not support transmission of avian haemosporidians parasites at high-elevation sites (3200 m).…”

Decoding the Role of Temperature in RNA Virus Infections

“…Similar, temperature-dependent replication rates of different genotypes have been observed among ZIKV strains with African lineage replicating efficiently at both 20°C and 28°C ( 111 ). Since studies have shown that various mutations can support temperature-dependent adaptation of RNA viruses (see “Temperature Impact on Virus Replication, Transcription, and RNA Structure” above) and the short generation times of vectors support adaptation to new environments ( 127 ), it seems likely that when temperatures increase for longer periods of time, RNA viruses will adapt to maintain their transmission rates at elevated temperatures and that overall RNA virus spread over the globe will increase.…”