Viviparity and Obligate Blood Feeding: Tsetse Flies as a Unique Research System to Study Climate Change.

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Current Opinion in Insect Science, 2025, v. 69: Viviparity and Obligate Blood Feeding: Tsetse Flies as a Unique Research System to Study Climate Change.
• Journal Article:
  Current Opinion in Insect Science
• Personal Author:
  Benoit, Joshua B. ; Weaving, Hester ; McLellan, Callum ; Terblanche, John S. ; Attardo, Geoffrey M. ; English, Sinead
• Description:
  Tsetse flies (Glossina species) are unique organisms that combine several remarkable traits: they are obligate blood feeders, serve as critical vectors for African trypanosomes, and reproduce through adenotrophic viviparity - a process in which offspring are nourished with milk-like secretions before being born live. Here, we explore how climate change will impact the physiological processes associated with live birth in tsetse. This includes considerations of how blood feeding, host-pathogen interactions, and host-symbiont dynamics are likely to be impacted by thermal shifts. The highly specialized biology of tsetse flies suggests that this system is likely to have a distinctive response to climate change. Thus, detailed empirical research into these unique features is paramount for predicting tsetse population dynamics under climate change, with caution required when generalizing from other well-studied vectors with contrasting ecology and life histories such as mosquitoes and ticks. At the same time, the reproductive biology of tsetse, as well as microbiome and feeding dynamics, allow for a powerful model to investigate climate change through the lens of pregnancy and associated physiological adaptations in an extensively researched invertebrate.
• Content Notes:
  Author manuscript
• Subjects:
  • Animals
  • Tsetse Flies
  • Climate Change
  • Viviparity, Nonmammalian
  • Feeding Behavior
  • Insect Vectors
  • Host-Pathogen Interactions
• Keywords:
  • viviparity
  • heat stress
  • trypanosome
  • metabolism
  • climate change
• Source:
  Current Opinion in Insect Science, 2025, v. 69
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cois.2025.101369
• ISSN:
  2214-5745 ; 2214-5753
• Pubmed ID:
  40122517
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC12741855
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  R01 AI148551/AI/NIAID NIH HHSUnited States/ ; R21 AI166633/AI/NIAID NIH HHSUnited States/ ; U17 CE002009/CE/NCIPC CDC HHSUnited States/
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Pages in Document:
  101369 (13 pdf pages)
• Volume:
  69
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/261578/cdc_261578_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1020.55 KB]
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:6f22bbf69955aae37d2612b36723490874e3d13e0d64e6796e248c22455e4fab7bcaab5c023dd9ff5cc455eabe2f18f67a2533838393d978de2ed5955b351a19