Griep Jet S, Grant Eve, Pilgrim Jack, Riabinina Olena, Baylis Matthew, Wardeh Maya, Blagrove Marcus S C
Institute of Infection, Veterinary and Ecological Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.
Department of Biosciences, Durham University, Durham, United Kingdom.
PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2025 Jan 24;19(1):e0012245. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0012245. eCollection 2025 Jan.
Understanding host utilization by mosquito vectors is essential to assess the risk of vector-borne diseases. Many studies have investigated the feeding patterns of Culex mosquitoes by molecular analysis of blood-meals from field collected mosquitoes. However, these individual small-scale studies only provide a limited understanding of the complex host-vector interactions when considered in isolation. Here, we analyze the Culex blood-feeding data from 109 publications over the last 15 years to provide a global insight into the feeding patterns of Culex mosquitoes, with particular reference to vectors of currently emerging Culex-borne viruses such as West Nile and Usutu. Data on 29990 blood-meals from 70 different Culex species were extracted from published literature. The percentage of blood-meals on amphibian, avian, human, non-human mammalian, and reptilian hosts was determined for each Culex species. Our analysis showed that feeding patterns were not significantly explained by mosquito species-level phylogeny, indicating that external factors play an important role in determining mosquito feeding patterns. For Cx. quinquefasciatus, 'Cx. pipiens pooled', and Cx. tritaeniorhynchus, feeding patterns were compared across the world's seven biogeographical realms. Culex tritaeniorhynchus, 'Cx. pipiens pooled' and Cx. quinquefasciatus all had significantly varied feeding patterns between realms. These results demonstrate that feeding patterns of Culex mosquitoes vary between species but can also vary between geographically distinct populations of the same species, indicating that regional or population-level adaptations are major drivers of host utilization. Ultimately, these findings support the surveillance of vector-borne diseases by specifying which host groups are most likely to be at risk.
了解蚊媒对宿主的利用情况对于评估媒介传播疾病的风险至关重要。许多研究通过对野外采集蚊子的血餐进行分子分析，研究了库蚊的摄食模式。然而，这些单独的小规模研究单独考虑时，对复杂的宿主-媒介相互作用的理解有限。在这里，我们分析了过去15年中109篇出版物中的库蚊吸血数据，以全面了解库蚊的摄食模式，特别参考了当前出现的库蚊传播病毒（如西尼罗河病毒和乌苏图病毒）的媒介。从已发表的文献中提取了70种不同库蚊的29990份血餐数据。确定了每种库蚊在两栖动物、鸟类、人类、非人类哺乳动物和爬行动物宿主上的血餐百分比。我们的分析表明，蚊种水平的系统发育并不能显著解释摄食模式，这表明外部因素在决定蚊子摄食模式中起着重要作用。对于致倦库蚊、“尖音库蚊复合组”和三带喙库蚊，在世界七个生物地理区域比较了它们的摄食模式。三带喙库蚊、“尖音库蚊复合组”和致倦库蚊在不同区域的摄食模式都有显著差异。这些结果表明，库蚊的摄食模式因物种而异，但同一物种在地理上不同的种群之间也可能不同，这表明区域或种群水平的适应性是宿主利用的主要驱动因素。最终，这些发现通过指明哪些宿主群体最有可能面临风险，支持了对媒介传播疾病的监测。
