NorthWest Bio

Predicting Mosquito-Borne Disease Risks in Scotland’s changing environment

Supervisors: 

Juan Manuel Morales, School of Biodiversity, One Health and Comparative Medicine, University of Glasgow

Luca Nelli, School of Biodiversity, One Health and Veterinary Medicine, University of Glasgow 

Luigi Sedda, Lancaster Ecology and Epidemiology Group, Lancaster Medical School, Lancaster University

Heather Ferguson, School of Biodiversity, One Health and Veterinary Medicine, University of Glasgow 

 

Summary: 

Climate and associated environmental changes are driving the expansion of mosquito vector-borne diseases (VBDs) into temperate zones including western Europe. However, ability to predict the risk of mosquito VBD emergence in the UK is hampered by the limited knowledge of vector distribution, capacity to transmit diseases and ecology; and how these will respond to future environmental change. This gap is most pronounced in northern areas of the UK such as Scotland, as most existing data is from the South.

This project will address these gaps by leveraging data arising from a new UKRI-DEFRA project on mosquito-borne disease risk in Scotland (“MosquitoScotland”). The overarching goal is to use models and associated risk maps to inform VBD surveillance and control in Scotland and the UK more generally.