The genomic signal of local environmental adaptation in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes

• DOI: 10.1111/eva.13199
• Publication Date: 2021-02-02T07:03:20Z
• Authors: Kelly L. Bennett; W. Owen McMillan; Jose R. Loaiza
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; hybridization capture‐based target enrichment; Mosquito Repellents; Panama; Evolution; Population genetics; Local adaptation; Population; Plant Science; Gene; Agricultural and Biological Sciences; 03 medical and health sciences; Aedes aegypti; Sociology; Health Sciences; QH359-425; Genetics; Genetic variation; Global Impact of Arboviral Diseases; environmental association analysis; Biology; Vector (molecular biology); Aedes mosquitoes; Demography; 0303 health sciences; Recombinant DNA; Adaptation (eye); Ecology; Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health; Life Sciences; Original Articles; Gene flow; FOS: Sociology; Insect Science; FOS: Biological sciences; Larva; arboviral disease landscape; Medicine; Insect Symbiosis and Microbial Interactions; Botanical Insecticides in Agriculture and Pest Management; local adaptation; Neuroscience

AbstractLocal adaptation is important when predicting arthropod‐borne disease risk because of its impacts on vector population fitness and persistence. However, the extent that vector populations are adapted to the environment generally remains unknown. Despite low population structure and high gene flow in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes across Panama, excepting the province of Bocas del Toro, we identified 128 candidate SNPs, clustered within 17 genes, which show a strong genomic signal of local environmental adaptation. This putatively adaptive variation occurred across fine geographical scales with the composition and frequency of candidate adaptive loci differing between populations in wet tropical environments along the Caribbean coast and dry tropical conditions typical of the Pacific coast. Temperature and vegetation were important predictors of adaptive genomic variation in Ae. aegypti with several potential areas of local adaptation identified. Our study lays the foundations of future work to understand whether environmental adaptation in Ae. aegypti impacts the arboviral disease landscape and whether this could either aid or hinder efforts of population control.