title: How does the dengue vector mosquito Aedes albopictus respond to global warming?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Global warming has a marked influence on the life cycle of epidemic vectors as well as their interactions with human beings. The Aedes albopictus mosquito as the vector of dengue fever surged exponentially in the last decade, raising ecological and epistemological concerns of how climate change altered its growth rate and population dynamics. As the global warming pattern is considerably uneven across four seasons, with a confirmed stronger effect in winter, an emerging need arises as to exploring how the seasonal warming effects influence the annual development of Ae. albopictus.
  
  
  METHODS
  The model consolidates a 35-year climate dataset and designs fifteen warming patterns that increase the temperature of selected seasons. Based on a recently developed mechanistic population model of Ae. albopictus, the model simulates the thermal reaction of blood-fed adults by systematically increasing the temperature from 0.5 to 5 °C at an interval of 0.5 °C in each warming pattern.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The results show the warming effects are different across seasons. The warming effects in spring and winter facilitate the development of the species by shortening the diapause period. The warming effect in summer is primarily negative by inhibiting mosquito development. The warming effect in autumn is considerably mixed. However, these warming effects cannot carry over to the following year, possibly due to the fact that under the extreme weather in winter the mosquito fully ceases from development and survives in terms of diapause eggs.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  As the historical pattern of global warming manifests seasonal fluctuations, this study provides corroborating and previously ignored evidence of how such seasonality affects the mosquito development. Understanding this short-term temperature-driven mechanism as one chain of the transmission events is critical to refining the thermal reaction norms of the epidemic vector under global warming as well as developing effective mosquito prevention and control strategies.
authors.affiliation: College of Global Change and Earth System Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China.
authors.forename: Pengfei
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China. chenxiangpeter@gmail.com.|Department of Emergency Management, Arkansas Tech University, Russellville, 72801, AR, USA. chenxiangpeter@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Xiang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China.
authors.forename: Jin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, China CDC, Beijing, 102206, China.
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, China CDC, Beijing, 102206, China.
authors.forename: Qiyong
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: College of Global Change and Earth System Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoyue
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Tan
mesh_terms: D000330:Aedes / Q000254:growth & development / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D003715:Dengue / Q000635:transmission; D017753:Ecosystem; D057232:Global Warming; D007303:Insect Vectors / Q000254:growth & development / Q000502:physiology*; D008954:Models, Biological; D012621:Seasons; D013696:Temperature
keywords: Aedes albopictus; Global warming; Mechanistic population modeling; Mosquito; Seasonality; Thermal reaction norms