Role of environmental changes in the spread of malaria in Europe during the Holocene

This article proposes the hypothesis that environmental changes altering mosquito breeding sites in coastal wetlands had a substantial influence on the history of malaria in many parts of Europe during the Holocene. The effects of both climatic and landscape changes on malaria itself and its vector mosquitoes are considered. It is argued that the forms of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum that occurred in southern Europe in the past actually evolved in North Africa and the Near East and that its most important vectors in southern Europe in the past (Anopheles labranchiae and A. sacharovi) also came from North Africa and the Near East. It is suggested that the establishment of these mosquitoes in many parts of southern Europe was facilitated by substantial landscape changes which coincided with the spread of the disease as documented by written sources. The relationship of malaria to environmental change in northern Europe is also reviewed briefly.