A Preliminary Virome Survey of Arctic and Sub-Arctic Tundra Mosquitoes (Aedes, Subgenus Ochlerotatus): Viral Diversity and Phylogenetic Affinities in Three Pooled Regional Samples

Rapid Arctic warming may increase mosquito abundance and alter host interactions, yet tundra mosquito-associated viral communities remain poorly characterized. We report viral sequences from pooled mosquitoes of three Arctic and sub-Arctic regions: Alaska (Aedes punctor group, n = 4), Canada (Ae. nigripes, n = 4), and Greenland (Ae. nigripes, n = 10). For each site, pooled specimens were sequenced from total nucleic acids and viral families were assigned only from amino-acid-level hits. Fourteen families were detected (7, 7, and 4 per pool), dominated by Iflaviridae, Narnaviridae, and Orthototiviridae (approximately 99%, 71%, and 93% of virus-assigned reads, respectively). Baculoviridae and Orthototiviridae were shared across all pools, though baculovirus may reflect environmental or dietary exposure rather than active infection. Maximum-likelihood phylogenies placed the recovered sequences within mosquito-associated lineages related to Fennoscandian relatives: a near-complete Alaskan iflavirus sequence (9850 bp) clustered with Finnish Pedersore iflaviruses, while Canadian and Greenlandic totiviruses and a narna-like virus were related to but divergent from Fennoscandian references. A Canadian chu-like virus-like sequence was the most divergent (27.9% amino-acid identity). These results link tundra mosquito-associated viral sequences to Fennoscandian lineages, some closely related but others substantially divergent. Despite single pooled libraries per region, this study offers an initial baseline for Arctic tundra mosquito viromes and underscores the need for future individually sequenced surveys under standardized protocols.