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Ancient origin of an urban underground mosquito
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Ancient origin of an urban underground mosquito

Yuki Haba, Petra Korlević, Erica Mcalister, Mara K N Lawniczak, Molly Schumer, Noah H Rose, Carolyn S Mcbride, Matthew Aardema, Maria Afonso, Natasha Agramonte, …
Science, Vol.390(6771)
2025
PMID: 41129649

Résumé

Animals Humans West Nile Fever West Nile virus Adaptation, Physiological Biological Evolution Cities Culex London Middle East Mosquito Vectors
Understanding how life is adapting to urban environments represents an important challenge in evolutionary biology. In this work, we investigate a widely cited example of urban adaptation, Culex pipiens form molestus , also known as the London Underground mosquito. Population genomic analysis of ~350 contemporary and historical samples counters the popular hypothesis that molestus originated belowground in London <200 years ago. Instead, we show that molestus first adapted to human environments aboveground in the Mediterranean or Middle East over the course of more than 1000 years, possibly in association with ancient agricultural civilizations of the Middle East. Our results highlight the role of early human society in priming taxa for contemporary urban evolution. They also provide insight into whether and how molestus contributes to West Nile virus transmission in modern cities.

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