Abstract
The Asian tiger mosquito Aedes albopictus (Skuse, 1894) is a highly invasive species widely distributed on the Spanish Mediterranean coast and the Balearic archipelago. Most studies involving this species in Spain have been focused on surveillance and control methods. However, micro-evolutionary studies for Ae. albopictus in Spain have been traditionally neglected. Morphological diversity could be the result of long-term evolutionary diversification in responses to selective pressures such as temperature, precipitation, food availability, predation, or competition that may influence flight activity, host-seeking, and blood-feeding behavior. Wing geometric morphometric have been used not only to study micro- and macro-evolution in mosquitoes but also in studies of population structuring and sexual dimorphism. Therefore, the main goal of this study was to investigate the wing shape patterns of Ae. albopictus populations to unveil sexual dimorphism that could provide information about their ecology and behavior. Mosquito eggs were collected using oviposition traps at the main campus of the University of the Balearic Islands (Palma de Mallorca, Spain) and reared under laboratory conditions. In order to study wing shape variation patterns in Ae. albopictus males and females, the left wing of each adult mosquito was removed and analyzed based on 18 landmarks. Our results indicated strong levels of sexual dimorphism between Ae. albopictus males and females. Furthermore, according to the cross-validated reclassification test, males were correctly distinguished from females with an accuracy of 84% and females from males 75%. We observed a significant sexual dimorphism in the wing shape patterns of Ae. albopictus when considering different seasonal patterns (spring vs. autumn). Our results suggested that selective pressures may affect males differently to females. Host-seeking, blood-feeding, and oviposition behavior of females may act as a major driver for wing shape sexual dimorphism. These results should be considered for the development of more effective and targeted mosquito control strategies.
Highlights
The Asian tiger mosquito Aedes albopictus (Skuse, 1894) is a highly invasive species currently distributed throughout the Mediterranean area including the Balearic archipelago
The goal of this study is to investigate the sexual dimorphism based on wing shape variations in Ae. albopictus populations from the Balearic Islands and to explore if Ae. albopictus male and female populations are driven differently by selective pressures
The Procrustes superimposition analysis using the classifier sex resulted in significant differences in the wing shape patterns of males and females
Summary
The Asian tiger mosquito Aedes albopictus (Skuse, 1894) is a highly invasive species currently distributed throughout the Mediterranean area including the Balearic archipelago. This mosquito species is native to south-west tropical and subtropical forests in Asia and it has spread through all the continents except Antarctica (Kraemer et al, 2015; Cunze et al, 2016). Aedes albopictus was first introduced in Europe in Albania in 1979 Since it has spread throughout the continent (Gratz, 2004) and it has been recorded in at least 31 European countries (Collantes et al, 2015; Petricet al., 2018). The most recent recordings include the south of England (Medlock et al, 2017), the north of Portugal (Osório et al, 2018), the region of Bohemia in the Czech Republic (Rettich and Kulma, 2018), and the southern Italian islands of Lampedusa, Linosa and Pantelleria (Di Luca et al, 2017)
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