Abstract
Mosquitoes are major vectors of arboviruses, and host a wide diversity of insect viruses. Recent studies highlighted the impacts of mosquito-associated insect-specific viruses on the transmission of arboviruses. However, we still lack knowledge on the biotic and abiotic factors impacting the distribution dynamics of mosquito specific viruses, although such information has the potential to inform arbovirus surveillance efforts. To gain knowledge on the distribution of mosquito viruses in islands, we collected 13 Aedes albopictus and 9 Culex quinquefasciatus pooled larvae samples in the Rėunion Island, described their whole viral communities at the family level by a viromic approach, and tested the impacts of mosquito species and spatial distance on the structure of their viral communities. Our study show that the composition of viral communities is more strongly linked to mosquito species than to the geographic origin of samples. Spatial disparities were only observed in Aedes albopictus viromes. Finally, we described the genomes of five virus taxa (an iflavirus, an ambidensovirus and three potentially novel microvirus species). Notably, we detected the presence of a mosquito-infecting ambidensovirus, named CpDV, in Aedes albopictus . It was previously only reported in Culex pipiens , implying that this densovirus may have a broader host range than currently estimated. Overall these results bring insights into the diversity and the distribution of mosquito viruses; their unexplored interactions with two major vectors of arboviral diseases warrant further studies.