TY - JOUR
T1 - Viviparity and obligate blood feeding
T2 - tsetse flies as a unique research system to study climate change
AU - Benoit, Joshua B.
AU - Weaving, Hester
AU - McLellan, Callum
AU - Terblanche, John S.
AU - Attardo, Geoffrey M.
AU - English, Sinead
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 The Authors
PY - 2025/6/1
Y1 - 2025/6/1
N2 - Tsetse flies (Glossina species) are unique organisms that combine several remarkable traits: they are obligate blood feeders, serve as critical vectors for African trypanosomes, and reproduce through adenotrophic viviparity—a process in which offspring are nourished with milk-like secretions before being born live. Here, we explore how climate change will impact the physiological processes associated with live birth in tsetse. This includes considerations of impacts on how blood feeding, host-pathogen interactions, and host-symbiont dynamics are likely to be impacted by thermal shifts. The highly specialized biology of tsetse flies suggests that this system is likely to have a distinctive response to climate change. Thus, detailed empirical research into these unique features is paramount for predicting tsetse population dynamics under climate change, and cautions against generalising from other well-studied vectors with contrasting ecology and life histories such as mosquitoes and ticks. At the same time, the reproductive biology of tsetse, as well as microbiome and feeding dynamics, allow for a powerful model to investigate climate change through the lens of pregnancy and associated physiological adaptations in an extensively researched invertebrate.
AB - Tsetse flies (Glossina species) are unique organisms that combine several remarkable traits: they are obligate blood feeders, serve as critical vectors for African trypanosomes, and reproduce through adenotrophic viviparity—a process in which offspring are nourished with milk-like secretions before being born live. Here, we explore how climate change will impact the physiological processes associated with live birth in tsetse. This includes considerations of impacts on how blood feeding, host-pathogen interactions, and host-symbiont dynamics are likely to be impacted by thermal shifts. The highly specialized biology of tsetse flies suggests that this system is likely to have a distinctive response to climate change. Thus, detailed empirical research into these unique features is paramount for predicting tsetse population dynamics under climate change, and cautions against generalising from other well-studied vectors with contrasting ecology and life histories such as mosquitoes and ticks. At the same time, the reproductive biology of tsetse, as well as microbiome and feeding dynamics, allow for a powerful model to investigate climate change through the lens of pregnancy and associated physiological adaptations in an extensively researched invertebrate.
U2 - 10.1016/j.cois.2025.101369
DO - 10.1016/j.cois.2025.101369
M3 - Article (Academic Journal)
C2 - 40122517
SN - 2214-5745
VL - 69
JO - Current Opinion in Insect Science
JF - Current Opinion in Insect Science
M1 - 101369
ER -
