Recent years have seen significant progress in understanding the impact of host community assemblage on disease risk, yet diversity in disease vectors has rarely been investigated. Using published malaria and mosquito surveys from Kenya, we analyzed the relationship between malaria prevalence and multiple axes of mosquito diversity: abundance, species richness, and composition. We found a net amplification of malaria prevalence by vector species richness, a result of a strong direct positive association between richness and prevalence alongside a weak indirect negative association between the two, mediated through mosquito community composition. One plausible explanation of these patterns is species niche complementarity, whereby less competent vector species contribute to disease transmission by filling spatial or temporal gaps in transmission left by dominant vectors. A greater understanding of vector community assemblage and function, as well as any interactions between host and vector biodiversity, could offer insights to both fundamental and applied ecology.

中文翻译：

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解构疟疾媒介多样性对疾病风险的影响。

近年来，在了解宿主社区聚集对疾病风险的影响方面取得了重大进展，但很少研究疾病载体的多样性。使用肯尼亚发表的疟疾和蚊子调查，我们分析了疟疾流行率与蚊子多样性的多个轴之间的关系：蚊子的丰度，物种丰富度和组成。我们发现，通过媒介物种丰富度，疟疾患病率得到了净放大，这是通过蚊虫群落组成介导的，丰富度与患病率之间存在直接的正相关性，而两者之间的间接相关性却很弱。这些模式的一种合理解释是物种生态位互补性，因此，能力较弱的媒介物种通过填补优势媒介留下的传播中的空间或时间空白，来促进疾病传播。对媒介群落组成和功能以及寄主和媒介生物多样性之间任何相互作用的更多了解，可以为基础生态学和应用生态学提供见识。