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Paper Information

Title

Ancient origin of an urban underground mosquito.

Abstract

Understanding how life is adapting to urban environments represents an important challenge in evolutionary biology. Here 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 counter the popular hypothesis that molestus originated belowground in London less than 200 years ago. Instead, we show that molestus first adapted to human environments aboveground in the Middle East over the course of >1000 years, likely in concert with the rise of agricultural civilizations. Our results highlight the role of early human society in priming taxa for contemporary urban evolution and have important implications for understanding arbovirus transmission.

Journal

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology

Citation

Haba Y, Aardema ML, Afonso MO, Agramonte NM, Albright J, Alho AM, Almeida APG, Alout H, Alten B, Altinli M, Amara Korba R, Andreadis SS, Anghel V, Arich S, Arsenault-Benoit A, Atyame C, Aubry F, Avila FW, Ayala D, Azrag RS, Babayan L, Bear A, Becker N, Bega AG, Bejarano S, Ben-Avi I, Benoit JB, Boubidi SC, Bradshaw WE, Bravo-Barriga D, Bueno-Marí R, Bušić N, Čabanová V, Cabeje B, Caputo B, Cardo MV, Carpenter S, Carreton E, Chouaïbou MS, Christian M, Coetzee M, Conner WR, Cornel A, Culverwell CL, Cupina AI, De Wolf K, Deblauwe I, Deegan B, Delacour-Estrella S, Torre AD, Diaz D, Dool SE, Dos Anjos VL, Dugassa S, Ebrahimi B, Eisa SYM, Elissa N, Fallatah SAB, Faraji A, Fedorova MV, Ferrill E, Fonseca DM, Foss KA, Foxi C, França CM, Fricker SR, Fritz ML, Frontera E, Fuehrer HP, Futami K, Ghallab EHS, Girod R, Gordeev MI, Greer D, Gschwind M, Guarido MM, Guat Ney T, Gunay F, Haklay E, Hamad AAE, Hang J, Hardy CM, Hartle JW, Hesson JC, Higa Y, Holzapfel CM, Honnen AC, Ionica AM, Jones L, Kadriaj P, Kamal HA, Kamdem C, Karagodin DA, Kasai S, Kavran M, Khater EIM, Kiene F, Kim HC, Kioulos I, Klein A, Klemenčić M, Klobučar A, Knutson E, Koenraadt CJM, Kothera L, Kreienbühl P, Labbé P, Lachmi I, Lambrechts L, Landeka N, Lee CH, Lessard BD, Leycegui I, Lundström JO, Lustigman Y, MacIntyre C, Mackay AJ, Magori K, Maia C, Malcolm CA, Marquez RO, Martins D, Masri RA, McDivitt G, McMinn RJ, Medina J, Mellor KS, Mendoza J, Merdić E, Mesler S, Mestre C, Miranda H, Miterpáková M, Montarsi F, Moskaev AV, Mu T, Möhlmann TWR, Namias A, Ng'iru I, Ngangué MF, Novo MT, Orshan L, Oteo JA, Otsuka Y, Panarese R, Paredes-Esquivel C, Paronyan L, Peper ST, Petrić DV, Pilapil K, Pou-Barreto C, Puechmaille SJ, Radespiel U, Rahola N, Raman VK, Redouane H, Reiskind MH, Reissen NM, Rice BL, Robert V, Ruiz-Arrondo I, Salamat R, Salamone A, Sarih M, Satta G, Sawabe K, Schaffner F, Schultz KE, Shaikevich EV, Sharakhov IV, Sharakhova MV, Shatara N, Sibataev AK, Sicard M, Smith E, Smith RC, Smitz N, Soriano N, Spanoudis CG, Stone CM, Studentsky L, Sulesco T, Tantely LM, Thao K, Tietze N, Tokarz RE, Tsai KH, Tsuda Y, Turić N, Uhran MR, Unlu I, Van Bortel W, Vardanyan H, Vavassori L, Velo E, Venter M, Vignjević G, Vogels CBF, Volkava T, Vontas J, Ward HM, Ahmad NW, Weill M, West JD, Wheeler SS, White GS, Wipf NC, Wu TP, Yu KD, Zimmermann E, Zittra C, Korlević P, McAlister E, Lawniczak MKN, Schumer M, Rose NH, McBride CS. (2025). Ancient origin of an urban underground mosquito. bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology

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