Medically Important Arachnids: Venoms, Envenomation, Vector-Borne Risks, and Public Health Perspectives.

Medically important arachnids represent a diverse and globally relevant group that includes venomous species such as spiders and scorpions, as well as parasitic or vector-associated groups such as ticks and mites. These organisms affect human and animal health through envenomation, allergic and inflammatory reactions, ectoparasitism, pathogen transmission, and their increasing presence in anthropogenic environments. In many regions, arachnid-related health problems continue to pose diagnostic, therapeutic, epidemiological, and public health challenges. However, important gaps remain in our understanding of their taxonomy, ecology, geographic distribution, venom composition, vector competence, population structure, evolutionary relationships, and interactions with humans, domestic animals, and changing environments.
This Research Topic aims to provide an updated and interdisciplinary overview of medically important arachnids and their relevance to human health. The collection seeks to integrate basic, translational, clinical, ecological, and public health perspectives to improve the understanding of arachnid-associated risks. We particularly aim to highlight how advances in molecular biology, genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, phylogeography, and surveillance can contribute to the study of arachnid diversity, venom variability, mechanisms of toxicity, pathogen transmission, adaptation to human-modifed environments, and the emergence or re-emergence of medically relevant species.

We welcome Original Research, Reviews, Mini-Reviews, Case Reports, and Brief Research Reports addressing medically important arachnids, including but not limited to spiders, scorpions, ticks, mites, and other arachnid groups of clinical, veterinary, epidemiological, or public health relevance. Topics of interest include taxonomy, systematics, biodiversity, ecology, synanthropy, geographic distribution, climate and environmental drivers, population genetics, phylogeography, venom composition and variability, toxin function, envenomation mechanisms, clinical manifestations, diagnosis, treatment, antivenoms, vector biology, pathogen detection, surveillance, prevention, risk communication, and One Health approaches. Contributions that integrate ecological, molecular, clinical, veterinary, and public health data will be especially valuable.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Medically important spiders, Venomous spiders, Spider envenomation, Toxinology, Venom proteomics, Transcriptomics, Omics, Molecular biology, Spider venom, Clinical manifestations, Antivenoms, Epidemiology, Public health, Taxonomy, Phylogeography, Toxins, Medically important arachnids, Arachnid envenomation, Scorpions, Spiders, Ticks, Mites, Vector-borne deseases, Surveillance, One Health.

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.