Phylogenomics to advance understanding of world mosquito diversity and vector ecology

This project expands knowledge of genetic interrelationships and biological diversity in world mosquitoes. Comparison of genes and genomes allows greater insight into the basic biology of mosquitoes, their capacity to carry or resist disease transmission, and their response to environmental factors that affect their impact on human and animal populations in domestic and natural conditions. The project expands genomic sampling for mosquitoes broadly throughout the group, with special focus on diverse, but as yet unstudied, species sampled worldwide. The project will further the development of interactive data systems that provide species identification, a comparative framework for species comparison and identification, and an interactive data archive and retrieval system for information on mosquito genes, biology, pathogens, and geographic distributions. The project will train numerous graduate and undergraduate students in US institutions and connect with K-12 teachers and students through museum exhibits, professional development workshops, and classroom kits. Additionally, the project will engage the public in the process of doing science through citizen science efforts.

Genomic sampling will be carried out from mosquito specimens held in museum repositories and from field collected samples. Anchored enrichment processes will be used to generate genomic data to identify monophyletic lineages and establish relationships within and among all higher culicid taxa, from specific to family level. The project will use comprehensively sampled phylogenetic estimates for mosquito clades that contain taxa that have crossed ecological boundaries to address evolutionary questions about domestication, and accompanying habitat- and host-shifts that appear to drive the evolution of major disease vectors. Lastly, the project will further expand the development of an existing species and pathogen biodiversity database (VectorMap), to include a data-enabled, interactive phylogeny of World mosquitoes that provides a contextualized interface for evolutionary studies of mosquito ecology, evolution, species interactions and taxonomic identification.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.