Bacterial communities associated to Aedes aegypti from Guadeloupe and French Guiana

Aedes aegypti is a mosquito vector of arboviruses such as yellow fever, dengue, chikungunya and Zika. Immature stages of this species develop in a wide panel of human-made reservoirs where they are exposed to various microorganisms influencing their life cycle and ability to transmit human arboviruses. Hence, its characterization and the identification of habitat features influencing microbiome structuration at different spatial scales is of major interest for risk assessments and vector control. In this study, we explored for the first time the spatial variability of natural bacterial communities associated to Ae. aegypti breeding sites and larvae from Guadeloupe and French Guiana. We applied large-scale 16S rRNA gene sequencing of 160 breeding sites and 147 pools of Ae. aegypti larvae. We found significant differences in bacterial composition between Ae. aegypti breeding sites from Guadeloupe and French Guiana. Despite we observed that microbiome from breeding sites influenced the relative abundance of several bacteria genera (i.e. Methylobacterium, Roseoccocus) on the corresponding larvae, the bacteria richness of the latter was lower and highly conserved between the two territories, with Herbiconux and Microvirga identified as ubiquitous and major genera. How and at which extent this geographical variability of breeding sites microbiota impacts the vectorial capacity of Aedes aegypti populations for human pathogens across the globe remains an open question.