Page - 75 - in Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change

75 et  al. 2012). This tick species has established populations in southern and eastern Europe but may extend its distribution to some areas of Italy, the Balkans and south- ern Russia when climatic conditions are improved, especially in autumn (Estrada- Pena et  al. 2012). 4.3 Biodiversity and  VBDs: The  Large Unknowns 4.3.1 Pathogen Diversity The diversity of potential human pathogens, the species diversity and phenotypic plasticity of vectors and the biodiversity of their reservoir hosts is largely unex- plored. On our planet, an immense but largely unknown diversity of viral species is hosted by mammals and birds (estimate over 1.3  million, http://www.globalvi- romeproject.org/overview/). Approximately 38% of these viral species could result in VBDs in humans. The Global Virome Project will explore this biodiversity of viruses over the next 10  years, which may result in many surprises for the VBD research community. 4.3.2 Vector Diversity The understanding of spatio-temporal phenotypic diversity and genetic architec- tures of vector populations under current and climate change conditions is crucial for vector control management. Local knowledge on phenotypic diversity to insec- ticide resistance can foster success in chemical vector control. The worldwide insecticide resistance network WIN is currently tracking insecticide resistance in mosquito disease vectors on a global scale and consults with the WHO and member states on how to improve insecticide resistance surveillance and implement alterna- tive vector control tools (https://win-network.ird.fr/). Likewise, the understanding of vector ecology and in particular the understanding of age-structure of field popu- lations, the adaptive behaviour of vectors, and context-dependence of vector capaci- ties fundamentally affect the success rate of biotechnological interventions. The efficiency of biological and genetic vector control is in some cases defined by the available number of targeted life stages. In others, the ratio of released Wolbachia contaminated insects and genetically modified or radiation-sterilised males and the virgin wildtype counterparts in a field population determines the suppression rate of vector populations and hence the degree of disease control  (Iturbe-Ormaetxe et  al. 2011; Ross et  al. 2017). Our lack of basic ecological knowledge even with a promi- nent vector such as Anopheles gambiae for malaria disease could blunt our new biotechnological weapons for vector control (Alphey and Alphey 2014; Ferguson et  al. 2010). 4 Vector-Borne Diseases