A significant impact of climate change is adjusting the suitable range for a considerable number of plants and animals. We can already see it happening; butterflies, goldfinches and fish have all been documented in regions outside of their normal habitation zone. As the years pass and scientists gather more data, it is expected that more species will follow this trajectory.
This shift in range has more sinister consequences than new types of songbird in our gardens. Insects are on the move, too. Some of these, including mosquitos, pose a significant threat to human health.
Until now, diseases like malaria, West Nile virus and chikungunya seemed like a distant threat to many developed nations. Luckily for Europeans, climactic factors, such as temperature and humidity, prevent disease-carrying mosquitos from thriving in Europe as they do at lower latitudes.
But climate change could put us in the danger zone.
Research has shown that the suitable range for mosquitos is moving away from the equator, with some models predicting that their comfort zone could reach northern Europe by the end of the century (depending on how well we keep to our Paris Agreement commitments).
Images adapted from Ryan et al. (2019). 'Now' shows the current range of mosquitos (Aedes aegypti). '2080' indicates the potential future range of mosquitos with 'Business as Usual' emissions. Scale indicates duration of time in each region.
Mosquitos of the Anopheles genus act as carriers, or vectors, for diseases which kill millions of humans each year. If they moved further from the equator, up to a billion more people could be exposed to diseases such as Zika, dengue fever and malaria.
Mosquitos are not the only disease-carrier that will be on the move; pathogens affecting plants and animals alike could spread to new areas, the effects of which are still unknown.
In this blog, I intend to explore the complex and nuanced relationship between disease spread and climate change. Modelling how disease-carrying species respond to a changing climate is difficult, but the consequences for human populations across the globe are severe.
To get some background in the area, I recommend this excellent article in Carbon Brief outlining the implications for mosquito-borne diseases, which inspired me to pursue this topic for my blog in the first place.
I hope that you enjoy exploring this important topic with me over the coming months.