A community-level view of Wolbachia DNA positivity across mosquito assemblages in eastern China
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Wolbachia is a widespread mosquito-associated endosymbiont with important implications for vector biology and microbial ecology. However, field studies often examine Wolbachia within individual mosquito species, which can obscure how host community structure shapes the microbial signal observed at a sampling site. Here, we analyzed Wolbachia DNA positivity in a taxonomically curated collection of 2,434 mosquitoes from Huai'an, Lu'an, and Xuzhou in eastern China. The dataset comprised nine mosquito taxa and was used to link site-level mosquito community composition with taxon-resolved Wolbachia screening. Wolbachia DNA was detected in 419 mosquitoes, giving an overall positivity rate of 17.2%. Positivity was highly uneven across both taxa and sites. Five taxa, Culex pipiens, Anopheles sinensis, Culex tritaeniorhynchus, Armigeres subalbatus , and Aedes albopictus , accounted for 98.6% of all specimens, but most Wolbachia -positive mosquitoes were concentrated in Cx. pipiens, Ar. subalbatus , and Ae. albopictus . By contrast, An. sinensis and Cx. tritaeniorhynchus were rarely positive. Site-level positivity ranged from 11.3% in Huai'an to 60.8% in Lu'an and 90.0% in Xuzhou. These differences reflected strong variation in local mosquito assemblages, including the dominance of Ar. subalbatus in Xuzhou, rather than a simple geographic gradient. Taxa sampled across multiple sites also showed taxon-specific locality-associated heterogeneity, especially Ae. albopictus and Ar. subalbatus . Our results demonstrate that Wolbachia surveillance in natural mosquito systems requires community-resolved analysis, because site-level positivity can be driven by host composition. This host-assemblage perspective provides a scalable framework for interpreting mosquito-associated endosymbionts across ecological settings and for prioritizing taxa for downstream strain-level and functional studies.
Source: Frontiers in Microbiology
Language: English
Subfield: Insect Science
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,801
OpenAlex ID: W7223067594