Exploration of the main types of biome-scale culicid entomofauna (Diptera: Culicidae) in Europe and its relationship to the occurrence of mosquito-borne arboviruses

Abstract

The investigation of the zoogeographical patterns of mosquito faunae and the transmitted arboviruses is an important task in the time of climate change. We aimed to characterize the possibly existing large-scale mosquito faunae in Europe and compare to the occurrence of mosquito-borne arboviruses. The zoogeography of 100 mosquito taxa was investigated in a country and territory-level distribution. Based on the result of hierarchical clustering, four main large-scale faunae were found in Europe: a Mediterranean, a transitional-insular, a continental and a boreal. Significant differences were found between the taxonomic compositions of the faunae in genus level. Climatic classes have no significant influence on the number of mosquito species of an area in Europe, but each of the faunae has climazonal range. The results revealed that Culiseta and Ochlerotatus species, those are less implicated in the transmission of human pathogenic agents, are characteristic to the mosquito fauna of the more humid and cold climate areas. In contrast, the diverse Aedes, Anopheles and Culex fauna is characteristic to the mesothermal climate areas. Based on the developed index, the mesothermal-microthermal climate affinity of a given fauna can be determined. The distribution of the mosquito-transmitted arboviruses can be partially correlated with the ranges of the faunae.