A conceptual and unifying framework with a critical appraisal of lipid hijacking by microbes cycling between an arthropod vector and a mammalian host is explored.

Mechanistic, trait-based models for transmission of West Nile virus and observed incidence of human West Nile disease cases in the US both show optimal transmission at 24-25°C.

The role host and vector species play in pathogen transmission cycles is best quantified by integrating species' physiological and ecological competence.

Accounting for nonlinear responses to temperature is critical for accurately predicting how Ross River virus and other mosquito-borne diseases will respond to climate change and detecting the effects of temperature on disease transmission.

Data-driven methods predict over 35 mosquitoes are potential vectors of Zika virus, suggesting a larger geographic area and a greater human population is at risk of infection.

A global map of environmental suitability for Zika virus and the estimated population living at potential risk can help refine public health guidelines, travel advisories and intervention strategies at a crucial time in the global emergence of this arbovirus.

How large-scale single mosquito metatranscriptomics can define the mosquito’s complex microbiota and its blood meal sources, and contribute critical epidemiological information needed to control vector borne disease transmission, is shown.

While predators can clearly reduce mosquito populations by consumption, they can also have non-consumptive effects on mosquito body size and oviposition behavior, and these effects on vector traits can influence infectious disease dynamics.

With standardized insecticide-resistance assays failing to inform mosquito-control efficacy due to genotype-by-environment effects, practical resistance monitoring under relevant local conditions is needed to correlate resistance, mosquito-control efficacy, and disease epidemiology.

A field study coupled with a molecular analysis demonstrates that using hematophagous flies as 'flying syringes' could be used to investigate blood-borne pathogen diversity in wild vertebrates and act as an early detection tool of zoonotic pathogens.