Anthropogenic habitat disturbance and ecological divergence between incipient species of the malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae

Anthropogenic habitat disturbance is a prime cause in the current trend of the Earth's reduction in biodiversity. Here we show that the human footprint on the Central African rainforest, which is resulting in deforestation and growth of densely populated urban agglomerates, is associated to eco...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2012-06, Vol.7 (6), p.e39453
Main Authors: Kamdem, Colince, Tene Fossog, Billy, Simard, Frédéric, Etouna, Joachim, Ndo, Cyrille, Kengne, Pierre, Boussès, Philippe, Etoa, François-Xavier, Awono-Ambene, Parfait, Fontenille, Didier, Antonio-Nkondjio, Christophe, Besansky, Nora J, Costantini, Carlo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptation
Adaptive radiation
Agglomerates
Animal biology
Animal populations
Animals
Anopheles
Anopheles gambiae
Anophelinae
Anthropogenic factors
Aquatic insects
Biochemistry
Biodiversity
Biodiversity and Ecology
Biology
Culicidae
Data analysis
Deforestation
Disease transmission
Disturbance
Divergence
Drosophila
Ecological effects
Ecology
Ecosystem
Environmental Sciences
Fish
Habitats
Historical account
Insects
Invertebrate Zoology
Life Sciences
M form
Malaria
Malaria - transmission
Medical research
Medicine
Mortality
Mosquitoes
Plasmodium falciparum
Population density
Radiation
Rain forests
Rainforests
Remote sensing
Reproductive isolation
S form
Spatial data
Speciation
Trends
Urbanization
Vector-borne diseases
Vectors (Biology)
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Summary:Anthropogenic habitat disturbance is a prime cause in the current trend of the Earth's reduction in biodiversity. Here we show that the human footprint on the Central African rainforest, which is resulting in deforestation and growth of densely populated urban agglomerates, is associated to ecological divergence and cryptic speciation leading to adaptive radiation within the major malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae. In southern Cameroon, the frequency of two molecular forms--M and S--among which reproductive isolation is strong but still incomplete, was correlated to an index of urbanisation extracted from remotely sensed data, expressed as the proportion of built-up surface in each sampling unit. The two forms markedly segregated along an urbanisation gradient forming a bimodal cline of ∼6-km width: the S form was exclusive to the rural habitat, whereas only the M form was present in the core of densely urbanised settings, co-occurring at times in the same polluted larval habitats of the southern house mosquito Culex quinquefasciatus--a species association that was not historically recorded before. Our results indicate that when humans create novel habitats and ecological heterogeneities, they can provide evolutionary opportunities for rapid adaptive niche shifts associated with lineage divergence, whose consequences upon malaria transmission might be significant.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0039453