The Mosquitome: A new frontier for sustainable vector control

Excerpt

The emergence and rapid spread of resistance to chemical insecticides in all major mosquito vectors during the last 30 years is an emblematic evolutionary step in these mosquitoes adapting to human-made environments. Insecticide resistance seriously jeopardizes recent public health success in controlling malaria around the world, as well as significantly hindering any preventive or reactive interventions against highly adaptable mosquitoes, such as Aedes. This chapter argues that it is time for a paradigm shift from aggressive vector control to biologically lucid and evolutionally sound vector population management aimed at shrinking the ecological niche for pathogen transmission to prevent emergence and spread in human populations. Identifying a “Mosquitome,” which is the group of mosquito species attracted to and dependent on humans, while applying the principles of evolutionary biology to the control of mosquito-borne pathogens, can suggest novel opportunities and hidden evolutionary feedbacks that will result in mosquitoes helping us combat the diseases they transmit.