TY - JOUR TI - Transmission of West Nile and five other temperate mosquito-borne viruses peaks at temperatures between 23°C and 26°C AU - Shocket, Marta S AU - Verwillow, Anna B AU - Numazu, Mailo G AU - Slamani, Hani AU - Cohen, Jeremy M AU - El Moustaid, Fadoua AU - Rohr, Jason AU - Johnson, Leah R AU - Mordecai, Erin A A2 - Franco, Eduardo A2 - Malagón, Talía A2 - Gehman, Alyssa VL - 9 PY - 2020 DA - 2020/09/15 SP - e58511 C1 - eLife 2020;9:e58511 DO - 10.7554/eLife.58511 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.58511 AB - The temperature-dependence of many important mosquito-borne diseases has never been quantified. These relationships are critical for understanding current distributions and predicting future shifts from climate change. We used trait-based models to characterize temperature-dependent transmission of 10 vector–pathogen pairs of mosquitoes (Culex pipiens, Cx. quinquefascsiatus, Cx. tarsalis, and others) and viruses (West Nile, Eastern and Western Equine Encephalitis, St. Louis Encephalitis, Sindbis, and Rift Valley Fever viruses), most with substantial transmission in temperate regions. Transmission is optimized at intermediate temperatures (23–26°C) and often has wider thermal breadths (due to cooler lower thermal limits) compared to pathogens with predominately tropical distributions (in previous studies). The incidence of human West Nile virus cases across US counties responded unimodally to average summer temperature and peaked at 24°C, matching model-predicted optima (24–25°C). Climate warming will likely shift transmission of these diseases, increasing it in cooler locations while decreasing it in warmer locations. KW - culex pipiens KW - culex quinquefasciatus KW - culex tarsalis KW - temperature KW - mosquito-borne disease KW - west nile virus JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -