@article{4226,
  keywords = {Animals, Humans, Population Density, Female, Male, Genome, Insect, Genetics, Population, Aedes, Insect Proteins, Africa, Mosquito Vectors, Insect Bites and Stings, Cities, Climate, Urbanization},
  author = {Noah Rose and Massamba Sylla and Athanase Badolo and Joel Lutomiah and Diego Ayala and Ogechukwu Aribodor and Nnenna Ibe and Jewelna Akorli and Sampson Otoo and John-Paul Mutebi and Alexis Kriete and Eliza Ewing and Rosemary Sang and Andrea Gloria-Soria and Jeffrey Powell and Rachel Baker and Bradley White and Jacob Crawford and Carolyn McBride},
  title = {Climate and Urbanization Drive Mosquito Preference for Humans.},
  abstract = { <p>The majority of mosquito-borne illness is spread by a few mosquito species that have evolved to specialize in biting humans, yet the precise causes of this behavioral shift are poorly understood. We address this gap in the arboviral vector Aedes aegypti. We first collect and characterize the behavior of mosquitoes from 27 sites scattered across the species{\textquoteright} ancestral range in sub-Saharan Africa, revealing previously unrecognized variation in preference for human versus animal odor. We then use modeling to show that over 80\% of this variation can be predicted by two ecological factors-dry season intensity and human population density. Finally, we integrate this information with whole-genome sequence data from 375 individual mosquitoes to identify a single underlying ancestry component linked to human preference. Genetic changes associated with human specialist ancestry were concentrated in a few chromosomal regions. Our findings suggest that human-biting in this important disease vector originally evolved as a by-product of breeding in human-stored water in areas where doing so provided the only means to survive the long, hot dry season. Our model also predicts that the rapid urbanization currently taking place in Africa will drive further mosquito evolution, causing a shift toward human-biting in many large cities by 2050.</p> },
  year = {2020},
  journal = {Curr Biol},
  volume = {30},
  pages = {3570-3579.e6},
  month = {2020 Sep 21},
  issn = {1879-0445},
  doi = {10.1016/j.cub.2020.06.092},
  language = {eng},
}