Biological Adaptations Associated with Dehydration in Mosquitoes

Abstract

Diseases that are transmitted by mosquitoes are a tremendous health and socioeconomic burden with hundreds of millions of people being impacted by mosquito-borne illnesses annually. Many factors have been implicated and extensively studied in disease transmission dynamics, but knowledge regarding how dehydration impacts mosquito physiology, behavior, and resulting mosquito-borne disease transmission remain underdeveloped. The lapse in understanding on how mosquitoes respond to dehydration stress likely obscures our ability to effectively study mosquito physiology, behavior, and vectorial capabilities. The goal of this review is to develop a profile of factors underlying mosquito biology that are altered by dehydration and the implications that are related to disease transmission.

Keywords: Culicidae; Desiccation; Diptera; local adaptation; mosquito-borne disease; phenotypic plasticity; vapor pressure.

Figure 1

Concept mapping of factors integral to the dehydration of mosquitoes. Black line color signifies published support from three or more articles; grey, two or less articles; and, red, associations proposed in this review article. Solid lines denote at least one known association connecting two terms, dashed lines denote predicted associations from this publication (“Author predicted”) as well as predictions from other publications (“Predicted”). Line thickness is directly associated with the number of publications discussing connection of two terms. Associations are causal and supported by three or more publications, specific reference numbers are enumerated in Table S1. Connections with support from two or less publications are included to emphasize associations that are likely important to the holistic impact of dehydration on mosquito-borne disease transmission. A full account of associations is given in Table S2.

Figure 2

Predicted associations related to the dehydration of mosquitoes as proposed throughout the review. Red dashed lines represent associations solely predicted in this publication (“Author predicted”), blood red dashed lines are author predictions supported by other publications, and the number of supporting publications is represented by line thickness (1–4). Proposed compensatory mechanisms are grouped inside a dashed grey box. All terms and relationships are outlined in Table S3.