PERSPECTIVE article

Front. Malar.

Sec. Vectors

Volume 3 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmala.2025.1600850

This article is part of the Research TopicWomen in Malaria ResearchView all 15 articles

Mosquito Vector Diversity and Malaria Transmission

Provisionally accepted
  • Cornell University, Ithaca, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Malaria is the most important parasitic disease in the world, killing over half a million people a year.Globally, we have made gains toward eliminating this disease but our progress has stalled in the last decade. Much of our control efforts and predictive models are focused to a few, well understood systems such as Plasmodium falciparum transmission by species within the Anopheles gambiae complex. However, in many areas of the world, variation in the diversity of mosquito vectors significantly shape malaria transmission dynamics, seasonal persistence, and geographic range. This perspectives piece will focus on vectors of human malaria parasites and the impact of vector diversity on disease transmission by exploring how: 1) Anopheles species richness and abundance influence daily malaria transmission, and how differences in host feeding behavior and vector competence within a species-rich vector community influence local transmission, 2) diverse species contribute to persistence of malaria across seasons and spread through different ecotypes, and 3) species-specific parasite-vector interactions determine the genotypes of the malaria parasite that are successfully transmitted and shape parasite population structure. Finally, we will discuss future areas of research that should be prioritized toward understanding a more complete picture of malaria transmission dynamics in the context of diverse vector species.

Keywords: Malaria, vector diversity, Plasmodium, Anopheles, transmission

Received: 27 Mar 2025; Accepted: 25 Apr 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 St. Laurent. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Brandy St. Laurent, Cornell University, Ithaca, United States

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