Ecology of gene drives: Organism fitness under larval competition determines gene drive performance

Larval competition in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes strongly shapes gene drive performance, with ecological parameters dominating most design space and genetic parameters mattering mainly at the Pareto frontier.

• Why it matters: Gene drives must work within the target species’ ecology, but larval competition can alter fitness and thus drive outcomes. Understanding this interaction is essential for realistic vector control.
• What they did: The study extends an agent-based larval behavior model for Aedes aegypti and uses Bayesian optimisation to evaluate underdominant gene drive designs, mapping a Pareto frontier across release thresholds. It then applies local and global sensitivity analyses and builds stochastic and deterministic surrogate models for faster comparison.
• The result: Ecological parameters that govern larval behavior dominate gene drive performance across much of the parameter space, while genetic parameters are important at the frontier, enabling efficient simulation via surrogate models.

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