MOSQUITOES, DISEASE TRANSMISSION, AND URBANIZATION: A GENOMIC PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Pervasive urbanization and landscape changes have led to the increasing emergence of vector-borne diseases. Mosquitoes, the principal vector of these diseases, are affected by these developments in terms of habitat change and vector control. My thesis aims to employ genomic tools to understand how mosquitoes respond to a changing world. Using Singapore as a microcosm of global change, I examined microevolutionary processes in response to urbanization, including characterizing mosquito communities across habitats and investigating gene flow of a vector species across a heterogeneous cityscape. I then investigated macroevolutionary processes of deeper interspecies relationships to better understand current vector–pathogen–host dynamics. These include elucidating evolutionary associations between mosquitoes and their Wolbachia endosymbionts. I also reconstructed the evolutionary history of the medically-important Aedes (Stegomyia) scutellaris group, and detected the presence of introgression between lineages within the group.