Our paper Genomic diversity of the African malaria vector Anopheles funestus was published in Science today! It features inversions, selection in action, museum specimens and putative new ecotypes. doi.org/10.1126/scie...
This work is the result of a fantastic collaboration between Ayala & team, Dadzie & team, Richard Durbin, Koekemoer & team, @marakat.bsky.social & team, @flygirlnhm.bsky.social , Ochomo & team, Okumu & team, Paaijmans & team, Tchouassi & team, Wondji & team and @gsugenomics.bsky.social . 8/8
We find that the doublesex gene drive target site is highly conserved within our dataset, which bodes well for using the same population suppression gene drive approach in An. funestus as is underway for An. gambiae. 7/8
One of the most dangerous malaria-carrying mosquitoes is rapidly evolving in response to control efforts, genetics has revealed.
Findings could inform smarter tools to monitor for and fight malaria. 🦟
Read more here ⤵️
http://bit.ly/4pwQKDv
Mosquitoes from North Ghana have reduced genetic diversity consistent with a recent bottleneck. The population from South Benin has remarkable inversion frequencies and might be representative of a locally adapted ecotype. 4/8