Abstract
BackgroundTo monitor adult mosquitoes several trapping devices are available. These are differently constructed and use various mechanisms for mosquito attraction, thus resulting in different trapping sensitivities and efficacies for the various species. Mosquito monitoring and surveillance programs in Europe use various types of mosquito traps, but only a few comparisons have been conducted so far. This study compared the performance of four commercial trapping devices, which are commonly used in Europe.MethodsFour different traps, Biogents Sentinel trap (BG trap), Heavy Duty Encephalitis Vector Survey trap (EVS trap), Centres for Disease Control miniature light trap (CDC trap) and Mosquito Magnet Patriot Mosquito trap (MM trap) were compared in a 4 × 4 latin square study. In the years 2012 and 2013, more than seventy 24-hour trap comparisons were conducted at ten different locations in northern and southern Germany, representing urban, forest and floodplain biotopes.ResultsPer 24-hour trapping period, the BG trap caught the widest range of mosquito species, the highest number of individuals of the genus Culex as well as the highest number of individuals of the species Ochlerotatus cantans, Aedes cinereus/geminus, Oc. communis and Culex pipiens/torrentium. The CDC trap revealed best performance for Aedes vexans, whereas the MM trap was most efficient for mosquitoes of the genus Anopheles and the species Oc. geniculatus. The EVS trap did not catch more individuals of any genus or species compared to the other three trapping devices. The BG trap caught the highest number of individuals per trapping period in urban environments as well as in wet forest, while the CDC trap caught the highest number of individuals in the floodplain biotopes. Additionally, the BG trap was most efficient for the number of mosquito species in urban locations.ConclusionThe BG trap showed a significantly better or similar performance compared to the CDC, EVS or MM trap with regard to trapping efficacy for most common mosquito species in Germany, including diversity of mosquito species and number of mosquitoes per trapping period. Thus, the BG trap is probably the best solution for general monitoring or surveillance programs of adult mosquitoes in Central Europe.
Highlights
To monitor adult mosquitoes several trapping devices are available
During the entire study the highest number of species was caught with the CDC trap followed by the Biogents Sentinel trap (BG trap), EVS trap, and Mosquito trap (MM trap), but the total number of species detected was quite similar between the four trapping devices (Figure 3)
The BG trap caught significantly more species per trapping period compared to CDC trap, EVS trap, and MM trap, while there were no significant differences between the latter three traps (Figure 4, Table 4)
Summary
To monitor adult mosquitoes several trapping devices are available These are differently constructed and use various mechanisms for mosquito attraction, resulting in different trapping sensitivities and efficacies for the various species. Mosquito monitoring and surveillance programs in Europe use various types of mosquito traps, but only a few comparisons have been conducted so far. Previous studies on the comparison of mosquito traps were predominantly conducted in North and South America [12,13,14] Many of these studies focused primarily on the effectiveness of the traps to catch invasive and/or highly vector-competent species (e.g. Aedes albopictus) [14,15]. For the collection of Aedes albopictus, a better trapping efficacy was found for the Biogents BG Eisenhans de Luxe compared to the other three trapping devices. Differences between the BG and CDC traps were reported only for Anopheles atroparvus during a trap comparison in Spanish wetlands [22]
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