Molecules to spillover: how climate warming impacts mosquito-borne viruses
- PMID: 40570812
- PMCID: PMC12212916
- DOI: 10.1016/j.coviro.2025.101473
Molecules to spillover: how climate warming impacts mosquito-borne viruses
Abstract
Climate change is a critical driver in the outbreaks of vector-borne infectious diseases worldwide. Arbovirus vectors, namely, mosquitoes, exhibit strong and nonlinear responses to climatic factors, such as temperature driving changes in infectious disease dynamics. In this review, we highlight key climate change factors that can affect arboviruses and their mosquito vectors across multiple biological levels, emphasizing the consequences for the transmission and spread of viruses impacting human hosts. We examine the complex interplay between environmental changes and vector biology, including life history traits, vector competence, and species interactions. We characterize vector ecology across scales critical for our understanding of forecasting the impacts of climate change on mosquito-borne viruses, predicting disease outbreaks and developing effective control measures.
Copyright © 2025 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Conflict of interest statement
Declaration of Competing Interest None.
References
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- Ryan SJ, Carlson CJ, Tesla B, Bonds MH, Ngonghala CN, Mordecai EA, Johnson LR, Murdock CC: Warming temperatures could expose more than 1.3 billion new people to Zika virus risk by 2050. Glob Change Biol 2021, 27:84–93. - PMC - PubMed
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The researchers employed a temperature-dependent transmission model for Zika virus to systematically project climate change impacts on transmission suitability, predicting that by 2050, over 1.3 billion individuals may be exposed to temperature conditions favorable for ZIKV transmission under a worst-case climate scenario.
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