Interplay of climate change with physiological changes in adult Aedes albopictus

Abstract

The effect of unprecedented climate change conditions on the environment has attracted the attention of experts from various disciplines who wish to predict its evolution. This is due to its interaction with population health and people's quality of life. The emergence of vector-borne diseases (VBD) in Europe, particularly caused by invasive mosquitoes, has resulted in autochthonous transmission of Dengue and Chikungunya virus cases. In this contribution, we delve into the significant decline in the population of tiger mosquitoes and the noticeable reduction in their size, related to the changes that occur often in years with low rainfall and high temperatures during the summer months. This change can be traced to the morphology of the species, which has been analysed in this work and related to the possible enhanced transmission efficiency and susceptibility of vectors to VBD dissemination. Due to the greater susceptibility to pathogen replication and subsequent transmission of the pathogens to a host during blood feeding, these morphologically distinct species relatively seem to be an efficient vector. The relationship between the sizes of studied mosquitoes and rainfall levels requires more research by mathematical epidemiologists.