Mapping of resistance to vegetable polyphenols among Aedes taxa (Diptera, Culicidae) on a molecular phylogeny

To recover some evolutionary aspects of the interaction between culicine larvae and dietary polyphenols of the vegetation surrounding mosquito breeding sites, we constructed a phylogeny of the most common French Aedes species, chosen as reference species. We also evaluated the differential resistance of these larval taxa to the polyphenols of leaf litter from the riparian vegetation used as a food source. Mitochondrial DNA sequence analysis was performed among 14 different taxa and ecotypes (Aedes aegypti, Ae. albopictus, Ae. cantans, Ae. caspius, Ae. cataphylla, Ae. cinereus, Ae. detritus, Ae. geniculatus, Ae. mariae, Ae. pullatus, Ae. punctor, Ae. rusticus, Ae. sticticus, and Ae. vexans) through direct sequencing of a 763-base segment of the cytochrome oxidase subunit I gene. Phylogenetic analysis, based on nucleotide and amino acid sequences, was conducted by means of parsimony and distance methods. The differential tolerance of larvae to vegetable leaf litter was comparatively tested by use of 10-month-old alder leaf litter as an experimental standard. The absence of correlation between resistance to polyphenols and molecular phylogeny suggests that larval adaptation to polyphenol-rich vegetable breeding sites is a labile character. The acquisition of such resistance appears not to be ancestrally inherited, but rather to be a dynamic adaptation to the environment. Molecular data also support the classical morphological classification within the Aedes genus.