New research shows mosquitoes may be able to adapt to warming temperatures
- 2 min. read ▪ Published
A new study led by a UC Berkeley School of Public Health Environmental Health Sciences postdoctoral scholar shows that mosquitoes may be more able to adapt to climate change and rising temperatures than previously thought.
“The most common prediction of how global change will affect mosquitoes and mosquito-borne disease is that populations will shift to higher altitudes and higher latitudes,” said lead author Lisa Couper. “That is assuming mosquitoes won’t adapt to heat. But mosquitoes have all sorts of adaptive capabilities.”
Mosquito-borne diseases collectively cause nearly one million deaths each year world-wide, including dengue, malaria, and West Nile virus, among others.
However, Couper’s study, which investigated the ability of the western tree hole mosquito, or Aedes sierrensis, to tolerate heat over multiple generations. The study raised mosquito larva in both normal and high temperatures, then sequenced the genome of more than 200 individual insects.
The genetic analysis showed that mosquitoes raised in the high temperature setting had “chromosomal inversions”–or structural changes to their DNA–that showed adaptations to the hotter conditions. The heat tolerance the research team saw “exceeds that of projected climate warming,” according to the published paper, which appeared in PNAS in January.
“We found that mosquitoes have the potential to evolve on pace with climate warming, suggesting that we may be under-estimating future disease risk,” Couper and her research partners wrote in their paper, published in PNAS.
So while mosquito-borne illnesses like West Nile virus have become more common in areas, like the United States, where they were previously rare, the insects may also be able to adapt to an ever warming climate in historically warmer regions.
“We are seeing the emergence of mosquito-borne disease in places we thought were too cold and are seeing evidence that mosquitoes are emerging into previously colder regions,” said Couper. “But there is no evidence yet they are contracting in warmer regions.”
