Editorial: Insights in vector biology: 2021

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This editorial summarizes collections on the Research Topic "Insights in Vector Biology''.Vectors of four major tropical diseases including malaria, Chagas, dengue and West Nile were considered.The editorial discusses vectors contributing to residual malaria transmission that reside mainly outdoors and not targeted by indoor vector control interventions, notably, long lasting insecticidal nets and indoor residual spraying; the concept of paratransgenesis-a parasite transmission blocking strategy which uses genetically-modified microbes made to produce antimalarial effectors inside the vector for malaria control; assessment of insecticide resistance in malaria vectors; insecticide resistance in Chagas disease vectors; reproductive biology of the dengue vector; and the importance of characterising blood host type in wild Culex species involved in the transmission of zoonotic flaviviruses such as West Nile virus (WNV).In a Grand challenges paper on tropical infectious diseases, Torto and Tchouassi (2021) provided a synthesis of the progress made in the last three decades and future challenges.Therefore, the authors highlighted possible mitigation approaches for managing vectors associated with these diseases.The synthesis identified climate change, land use changes and urbanization as key drivers influencing the frequency of outbreaks of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, especially vectors of these diseases and their interactions with existing and novel pathogens.Some of the priority research areas recommended to researchers to consider included understanding physical cues, chemical ecology, transmission blocking, vector adaptation to environmental xenobiotics, and genetic control to help disrupt pathogen-vector-host interactions and to support disease control.Markedly, the other six contributions aligned with these recommendations.Unplanned urbanization poses a risk to disease dynamics through changing vector adaptation.Over the past decade following urbanisation in Simbock neighborhood of Yaounde-city (Cameroon), Mbakop et al. documented significant shifts in the malaria vector composition: drastic reduction in the malaria species richness but increase in the abundance of three species Anopheles gambiae, An. coluzzii and An.funestus s.s.These findings are significant, indicating adaptation in response to land use by these species Frontiers in Tropical Diseases frontiersin.

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