Search

Water-storage containers are common in households where access to water is scarce and often act as breeding sites for vector mosquitoes. Bacteria in these containers may be important for attracting or repelling ovipositing mosquitoes. We hypothesized that bacterial community composition in water-storage containers would represent either inhibitory or suitable environmental conditions for mosquito larvae. To investigate this, we characterized the bacterial community composition in water-storage containers and correlated these communities to Aedes and Anopheles larval densities. Water samples were collected over two years from 13 containers in an Indian village and analyzed by high throughput 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. Comparisons of bacterial community composition between water with and without mosquito larvae showed that Xanthomonadaceae, Comamonadaceae and Burkholderiaceae were more common (P < 0.05) in absence of larvae, while Lachnospiraceae, Synechococcaceae, Alcaligenaceae and Cryomorphaceae were more common (P < 0.05) in presence of larvae. Indicator analysis identified operational taxonomic units designated as CL500–29 marine group (Acidimicrobiaceae) and FukuN101 (Microbacteriaceae) for absence and presence of larvae, respectively. These results contribute to the understanding of which bacteria, directly or indirectly, can be linked to absence or presence of mosquitoes around households and set the basis for potential measures to be taken against these vector mosquitoes.

The intolerable burden of malaria has for too long plagued humanity and the prospect of eradicating malaria is an optimistic, but reachable, target in the 21st century. However, extensive knowledge is needed about the spatial structure of mosquito populations in order to develop effective interventions against malaria transmission. We hypothesized that the microbiota associated with a mosquito reflects acquisition of bacteria in different environments. By analyzing the whole-body bacterial flora of An. gambiae mosquitoes from Burkina Faso by 16 S amplicon sequencing, we found that the different environments gave each mosquito a specific bacterial profile. In addition, the bacterial profiles provided precise and predicting information on the spatial dynamics of the mosquito population as a whole and showed that the mosquitoes formed clear local populations within a meta-population network. We believe that using microbiotas as proxies for population structures will greatly aid improving the performance of vector interventions around the world.