Aligning climate and health: assessing zoonotic arboviral risks in agroforestry as a climate mitigation strategy - Recent outbreaks of arboviral diseases such as Zika and West Nile have their roots in forested ecosystems. Their emergence and spread often coincide with agricultural land conversion, which alters arthropod vector communities and the wildlife reservoirs that sustain zoonotic transmission. Our ongoing epidemiological studies in Florida demonstrate the circulation of multiple understudied arboviruses in humans, wildlife, and livestock, including Everglades virus (EVEV), a zoonotic alphavirus closely related to Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus. Across Florida’s growing network of small farms, open pasture systems and crop operations coexist with agroforestry and other sustainable practices. Despite the accelerating adoption of agroforestry, its impacts on infectious disease risk remain poorly characterized. This research aims to fill that gap by investigating zoonotic arboviral transmission in Florida in relation to agricultural practices, including agroforestry. Various factors, from biodiversity shifts to land tenure benefits and irrigation schemes, likely influence disease transmission. We hypothesize that landscapes that merge forest, agriculture, and human dwellings may enhance zoonotic arbovirus transmission by increasing overlap among vectors, vertebrate reservoirs, and humans. Our first aim is to assess agroforestry’s impact on zoonotic arboviral risk among the agrarian population in Florida by conducting serosurveys of farming households. Participant interviews will provide data on health and social determinants relevant to agriculture and zoonotic interactions. These data will inform habitat suitability modeling. Our second aim is to characterize vector ecology, infection rates, and host use across an agricultural gradient. We will quantify vector assemblages in agroforest interiors, boundaries, and open farm environments, and employ multiple trapping approaches to measure viral transmission and determine blood meal origins, to shed light on shifts in host usage associated with agroforestry. Our third aim is to map zoonotic arboviral risk using geospatial and field data. We will also evaluate natural selection and gene flow of EVEV across the agricultural gradient using genomes from field-collected mosquito, wildlife, and human isolates, along with historical regional sequences, to test the hypothesis that elevated host diversity at forest–agriculture interfaces promotes greater viral genetic diversification. The outcomes of this research will define the transmission dynamics and health burden of important zoonotic arboviruses in Florida and support evidence-based prevention strategies. This knowledge will guide land use and health policies, inform interventions, and help align extreme heat resilience and public health objectives within the context of agroforestry. The methodologies and insights generated will have broad applicability across regions with similar ecologies. Modified
