Insects | Author Insights—Dr. Gabriel Z. Laporta

We recently invited Dr. Gabriel Z. Laporta to share the story behind his paper, “Global Distribution of Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus in a Climate Change Scenario of Regional Rivalry”, one of the papers that won the Insects 2023 Best Paper Award. Below are the author’s insights into this research.

“We aimed to understand the effects of regional rivalry. The scenario of regional rivalry highlights how poorly countries across the globe are prepared to address climate change mitigation. Regional conflicts mean that global health challenges are not only ignored but often dismissed as lacking credible importance. This perspective has serious consequences. In this paper, we illustrate them by examining the global spatial distribution of arboviral disease vectors and projecting the implications for the current century.

Our work is grounded in the strong institutional foundations built over the years in both Brazil and the Americas. We acknowledge the invaluable contribution of VectorMap, maintained by the Walter Reed Biosystematics Unit, for its meticulous curation of specimen records following museum-based standards, and for digitizing these records to make them publicly available, ensuring accurate, comprehensive, and reliable information. We also recognize Brazilian institutions that have steadily improved the quality of their scientific output, including the FMABC University Center for its outreach program, which enables the transfer of knowledge and technology to less-resourced institutions in Brazil, including those in the Amazon.

The findings reveal several points for further reflection. The impacts of climate change will not be evenly distributed. Some regions will experience stronger and more disruptive effects than others. These effects will also differ in nature. We show that the spatial distribution of both vectors is likely to expand in Europe and the United States. Although the Southern Hemisphere shows reduced risk in our projections, this may not be positive. The underlying mechanism for this reduction is linked to a drier climate, which could harm biodiversity more broadly, threatening, for instance, the preservation of the Amazon forest in Brazil.

A note of caution is that no one can truly predict the future. The scenarios presented are simplifications of possible outcomes. Our intention is to demonstrate that regional rivalry can have direct consequences for the climate crisis, which in turn may shape the transmission risks of dengue, chikungunya, or Zika in specific and potentially severe ways for certain regions. Some of these consequences are already unfolding, and awareness is critical to ensure timely and proportional action. Without it, conditions in some areas may deteriorate before effective measures are taken to reverse the threats described.

Take care, stay safe, and never lose hope.”