Copula Modeling of Differential Effect of Leaf Species on Aedes albopictus Development Time

Seung-Hwan Lee,Ephantus J Muturi,Chang-Hyun Kim

doi:10.5539/enrr.v8n4p1

Abstract

Decaying leaves provide a major carbon source for mosquito larvae and leaf litter of different plant species vary in their ability to support mosquito growth, survival, and development. Thus analyzing the effects of leaf species treatment on development time of Aedes albopictus has the potential to discover a plant-based strategy for mosquito control. Here, we employ a statistical model named copula that provides a convenient methodology for modeling multivariate dependence to determine the association between leaf litter identify and mosquito performance. A copula that best fits the association of leaf litters on mosquito performance is selected, and statistical tests are performed to check the adequacy of the copula chosen. By computer-based Monte Carlo methods, a large number of simulated development times are generated under the copula chosen. From the simulated development times, we calculate the percentiles to determine expected development time of female Aedes albopictus under the five different leaf species treatments, and compared the results to those when all the effects of leaf infusion are combined.

Highlights

Aedes albopictus is one of the most effective disease vectors of dengue, chikungunya and Zika viruses, which used to be concerns of the Old World, but the public health issues of the New World (Lounibos, 2002, Juliano & Lounibos, 2005, Mlakar et al, 2016)
The goals of this paper are to create a multivariate distribution for the development time using an elliptical copula, to generate a large number of realizations from the distribution using Monte Carlo simulation, and to better understand the effect of the leaf litter treatments on the development time by looking at the large simulated data points instead of small observations that may cause a variation in results
We demonstrate the benefit of using a copula to study Ae. albopictus development time under various leaf litter treatments, where extreme values of interest could occur in the tails of the distribution

Summary

Introduction

Aedes albopictus is one of the most effective disease vectors of dengue, chikungunya and Zika viruses, which used to be concerns of the Old World, but the public health issues of the New World (Lounibos, 2002, Juliano & Lounibos, 2005, Mlakar et al, 2016). The effects of xenobiotics from natural sources including arborescent leaf detritus on mosquito development have received little attention despite several studies that have shown that leaf litter identity may influence mosquito performance and community structure (David et al, 2000, Murrell & Juliano, 2008, Pavela, 2008). The effects of various leaf litter on mosquito are often complex and their interpretation is quite difficult in case multiple leaf species are involved. To tackle these problems, we utilize a statistical model that controls multiple leaf species concurrently. Mosquito development time is one of the important enrr.ccsenet.org

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