Population structuring of the invasive mosquito Aedes albopictus (Diptera: Culicidae) on a microgeographic scale

Abstract

Aedes albopictus is an invasive mosquito species that has spread globally and can transmit several arboviruses, including dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. The species was first reported in Brazil in 1986 and since then has been found in 24 of the 27 Brazilian states, often in peri-urban environments close to highly urbanized areas. To date, population genetics of this important mosquito in areas in the city of São Paulo has not been investigated. In this study, we used 12 microsatellite loci to investigate the microgeographic population genetics of Ae . albopictus , which is present throughout the city of São Paulo. All the analyses revealed structuring of the populations studied, divided into two groups with restricted gene flow between them and without evidence of isolation by distance. We propose two hypotheses to explain the results: (i) low dispersal capability—limited gene flow between populations is due to the low dispersal capability inherent to Ae . albopictus ; and (ii) multiple introductions—the structure identified here results from multiple introductions, which led to different dispersal patterns within the city and more genetic heterogeneity. The ability of Ae . albopictus to invade new areas and expand may explain why these mosquito populations appear to be well established and thriving in the city of São Paulo.

The effects of genetic drift and genomic selection on differentiation and local adaptation of the introduced populations of Aedes albopictus in southern Russia

“…This could possibly be due to a sampling bias, but, taking into account fixation indices between populations (Table 1), it may rather be an indication of the highly restricted gene flow between populations. Average Fst in this case were higher than those observed between the populations from other invasion regions such as Europe, continental Africa (Kotsakiozi et al, 2017;Pichler et al, 2019), and Brazil (Multini et al, 2019).…”

Urban farms in Miami-Dade county, Florida have favorable environments for vector mosquitoes

“…The availability of environmental resources is vital to sustaining populations of vector mosquito species. The availability of these resources varies greatly in urban environments driving vector mosquito population dynamics, presence, and abundance [5,16,44,45]. Our results showed that mosquito species were abundantly found breeding and dwelling in urban farms, although they varied greatly in the community composition and abundance.…”

The influence of anthropogenic habitat fragmentation on the genetic structure and diversity of the malaria vector Anopheles cruzii (Diptera: Culicidae)

“…However, as there are no geographic barriers, such as mountains, bodies of water, or a large canyon between the environments, our results indicated that the specimens represent a large, well-distributed population with a high overall genetic homogeneity. Previous studies carried out with mosquitoes from Brazil on a micro-geographic scale, suggest that native species exhibited weaker genetic structure while invasive species were shown to be more genetically structured and diverse 10,11,63,64 .…”