Ecological drivers of vector abundance across Lithuania

While global biodiversity change is one of the foremost important topics in today’s scientific narrative, research into how changes in biodiversity are poised to impact other facets of biodiversity is still lacking. One such example is how changes in the abundance, diversity, and distribution of insect vectors—organisms that transmit diseases—might impact the spread and proliferation of dangerous pathogens (e.g., malaria). To understand these processes, more detailed information regarding the environmental factors influencing the presence and abundance of insect vectors is needed. This study aimed to do just that, leveraging high-resolution long-term and sophisticated statistical methods understand vector community dynamics in the boreal ecoregion. We expected that bad water quality will be related to higher abundance of vectors, but we found the opposite, with more vectors being related to better water quality, higher precipitation, and warmer temperatures. Additionally, vectors were much more likely to be present in the eastern part of the country with dense forests and better water quality. We also identified increases in vector-borne parasites from birds from western Lithuania, and it is thus likely that the eastern part harbours a higher prevalence and diversity of vector-borne parasites. This study, one of the most detailed of its kind, demonstrates the hidden wealth of national biomonitoring, elucidates some of the processes underlying the spread and establishment of insect vector communities, highlights priority areas for future parasitological research, and emphasizes the advantages of sophisticated statistics to provide nuanced and contextualised information.