Dr. Felix G. Sauer (Hamburg / DE), Dr. Tatiana Șuleșco (Hamburg / DE), Linda Jaworski (Hamburg / DE; Oldenburg / DE), Jessica Börstler (Hamburg / DE), Alex Tomazatos (Hamburg / DE), Prof. Ellen Kiel (Oldenburg / DE), Norbert Becker (Speyer / DE; Heidelberg / DE), Dr. Dániel Cadar (Hamburg / DE), Prof. Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit (Hamburg / DE), Dr. Renke Lühken (Hamburg / DE)
Abstract text
Introduction
Mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) are the most important arthropod vectors of pathogens. Understanding their blood-feeding behavior is an essential element to assess the vectorial capacity of a mosquito population. Therefore, this study aims to analyze mosquito spatial-temporal host-feeding patterns by barcoding blood-fed female mosquitoes.
Methods
Between 2012 and 2019, mosquitoes were sampled at different sites in Germany, Iran, Moldavia and Romania. Blood-fed specimens were analyzed by PCR with vertebrate specific primers and subsequently processed with Sanger sequencing. The sequences were compared to sequences from GenBank to identify the host species. The host specificity of the mosquitoes was tested by calculating the checkerboard score (C-score). In addition, land use information based on the Copernicus global land cover layers were extracted from each sampling site to analyze its influence on the mosquito-host interaction.
Results
In total, we collected 4,827 blood-fed specimens of 48 different mosquito taxa. The molecular biological analysis revealed 82 host taxa, including 3 amphibia, 42 bird, 36 mammal and 1 reptile species. The five dominant host species were domestic cattle (34%), human (18%), pig (13%), horse (9%) and roe deer (6%). C-scores indicated a random structure in the host-feeding patterns, i.e. mosquitoes use a broad range of different host species. Nevertheless, most mosquito species preferred certain host groups. Species from the genus Aedes predominantly fed on mammals, while we detected a balanced proportion of mammal and bird blood in Culex specimens. The analyses showed that the mosquito-host interaction is significantly affected by land use factors, e.g. at forest sites, human blood was predominantly detected in Aedes mosquitoes, while at unforested sites, particularly in urban areas or in shrublands, humans are more likely to be bitten by Culex mosquitoes.
Conclusion
Land use changes can influence the abundance and species composition of mosquitoes and vertebrates affecting vector-host dynamics. This large data with a standardized molecular screening method gives a unique insight in the spatial-temporal host-feeding patterns of mosquitoes and the relevance for mosquito-host interaction on the epidemiology of mosquito-borne diseases.