Journal
BMC EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
Volume 17, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
BMC
DOI: 10.1186/s12862-017-1092-y
Keywords
Convergence; Evolution; Habitat specialization; Aedes; Mosquitoes
Categories
Funding
- NIH [1R15AI092577]
- NSF [1311535]
- Northeastern Mosquito Control Association
- Biology Department of Clark University
- Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Division Of Environmental Biology [1311535] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Background: Invasive mosquito species are responsible for millions of vector-borne disease cases annually. The global invasive success of Aedes mosquitoes such as Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus has relied on the human transport of immature stages in container habitats. However, despite the importance of these mosquitoes and this ecological specialization to their widespread dispersal, evolution of habitat specialization in this group has remained largely unstudied. We use comparative methods to evaluate the evolution of habitat specialization and its potential influence on larval morphology, and evaluate whether container dwelling and invasiveness are monophyletic in Aedes. Results: We show that habitat specialization has evolved repeatedly from ancestral ground pool usage to specialization in container habitats. Furthermore, we find that larval morphological scores are significantly associated with larval habitat when accounting for evolutionary relationships. We find that Ornstein-Uhleinbeck models with unique optima for each larval habitat type are preferred over several other models based predominantly on neutral processes, and that OU models can reliably simulate real morphological data. Conclusions: Our results demonstrate that multiple lineages of Aedes have convergently evolved a key trait associated with invasive success: the use of container habitats for immature stages. Moreover, our results demonstrate convergence in morphological characteristics as well, and suggest a role of adaptation to habitat specialization in driving phenotypic diversity in this mosquito lineage. Finally, our results highlight that the genus Aedes is not monophyletic.
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