Abstract
Vector‐borne diseases are a major health burden, yet factors affecting their spread are only partially understood. For example, microbial symbionts can impact mosquito reproduction, survival, and vectorial capacity, and hence affect disease transmission. Nonetheless, current knowledge of mosquito‐associated microbial communities is limited. To characterize the bacterial and eukaryotic microbial communities of multiple vector species collected from different habitat types in disease endemic areas, we employed next‐generation 454 pyrosequencing of 16S and 18S rRNA amplicon libraries, also known as metabarcoding. We investigated pooled whole adult mosquitoes of three medically important vectors, Aedes aegypti, Ae. albopictus, and Culex quinquefasciatus, collected from different habitats across central Thailand where we previously characterized mosquito diversity. Our results indicate that diversity within the mosquito microbiota is low, with the majority of microbes assigned to one or a few taxa. Two of the most common eukaryotic and bacterial genera recovered (Ascogregarina and Wolbachia, respectively) are known mosquito endosymbionts with potentially parasitic and long evolutionary relationships with their hosts. Patterns of microbial composition and diversity appeared to differ by both vector species and habitat for a given species, although high variability between samples suggests a strong stochastic element to microbiota assembly. In general, our findings suggest that multiple factors, such as habitat condition and mosquito species identity, may influence overall microbial community composition, and thus provide a basis for further investigations into the interactions between vectors, their microbial communities, and human‐impacted landscapes that may ultimately affect vector‐borne disease risk.
Highlights
Vector-borne diseases are a major health burden, accounting for 17% of all infectious diseases (WHO) and almost 30% of emerging infectious diseases in recent times (Jones et al, 2008)
Given that infectious vector-borne diseases are increasing in humans (Jones et al, 2008), our goal is to characterize the composition and structure of microbiota in mosquito vectors across landscapes altered by human activities, where differences may influence the biology of vectors, their vectorial capacity, and the outcome of microbe-mediated disease control (Hughes et al, 2014)
This field study characterizes both bacterial and eukaryotic microbiota associated with naturally occurring mosquito vector species using culture-independent methods
Summary
Vector-borne diseases are a major health burden, accounting for 17% of all infectious diseases (WHO) and almost 30% of emerging infectious diseases in recent times (Jones et al, 2008). Recent evidence is mounting that the transmission of vector-borne pathogens can be inhibited by other vector-associated microbes (Sinkins, 2013). The most striking example is the inhibition by bacterium Wolbachia pipientis of virus and parasite infection in mosquito vectors (Bian, Xu, Lu, Xie, & Xi, 2010; Blagrove, Arias-Goeta, Di Genua, Failloux, & Sinkins, 2013; Frentiu et al, 2014; van den Hurk et al, 2012; Hussain et al, 2012; Moreira et al, 2009). While studies on the application of microbes such as Wolbachia to control human disease have advanced, we still lack basic insight into the natural microbial communities associated with vectors, from viruses to bacteria to single-celled eukaryotes. Given that infectious vector-borne diseases are increasing in humans (Jones et al, 2008), our goal is to characterize the composition and structure of microbiota in mosquito vectors across landscapes altered by human activities, where differences may influence the biology of vectors, their vectorial capacity, and the outcome of microbe-mediated disease control (Hughes et al, 2014)
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