The gut symbionts of arthropod disease vectors have been a heavily researched topic in epidemiology and public health over the past 100 years. The gut microbial community is primarily shaped by many factors, including parasite infection and the environment. As the gut microbial community makes up a large portion of the innate immune system, successful parasite establishment and replication can only occur when the parasite can outcompete or cohabitate with the resident microorganisms. Unsurprisingly, many parasites are unable to invade these harsh environments successfully. However, anthropogenic environmental disturbances, such as deforestation, may impact the gut microbiome’s resiliency to invading parasites. Anthropogenic disturbance has contributed to increased disease transmission risk between hosts and from vector to host. Increased transmission of vector-borne diseases, such as malaria or Chagas disease, is directly associated with changes in vector and host range shifts and microhabitat destruction. Developing a framework to understand further the effects of anthropogenic disturbances on the gut microbiomes of disease vectors and the potential impacts on vector competency is crucial to understanding the mechanisms between disturbance and transmission risk. This dissertation thesis spans different scales of biological organization (within-vector, within populations, and across populations) to examine the effects of anthropogenic disturbance on vector-borne disease transmission risk. In the first study, I combine publicly available 16S rRNA metabarcoding data and my unpublished work to characterize the gut microbial communities across seven species of triatomines collected across a vast landscape. And in the final two studies, I use 16S rRNA metabarcoding to examine the gut microbial diversity of Rhodnius pallescens, the primary vector of Chagas disease in Panama, across a deforestation gradient and parasite infection status. This research will help to increase our understanding of the relationships between gut microbial communities, vector life-history traits, environmental conditions, and pathogen dynamics, which can then be applied to ecological management and biocontrol strategies to help reduce Chagas disease transmission risk.