New research shows mosquitoes may be able to adapt to warming temperatures

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By UC Berkeley Public Health. 

Excerpt: A new study led by a UC Berkeley School of Public Health Environmental Health Sciences postdoctoral scholar shows that mosquitoes may be more able to adapt to climate change and rising temperatures than previously thought. “The most common prediction of how global change will affect mosquitoes and mosquito-borne disease is that populations will shift to higher altitudes and higher latitudes,” said lead author Lisa Couper. “That is assuming mosquitoes won’t adapt to heat. But mosquitoes have all sorts of adaptive capabilities.” Mosquito-borne diseases collectively cause nearly one million deaths each year world-wide, including dengue, malaria, and West Nile virus, among others. ...The study raised mosquito larva in both normal and high temperatures, then sequenced the genome of more than 200 individual insects. The genetic analysis showed that mosquitoes raised in the high temperature setting had ...structural changes to their DNA–that showed adaptations to the hotter conditions. The heat tolerance the research team saw “exceeds that of projected climate warming,” according to the published paper, which appeared in PNAS in January.... 

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