Abstract
BackgroundSpatial variation in the risk of many mosquito-borne pathogens is strongly influenced by the distribution of communities of suitable vector mosquitoes. The spatial distributions of such communities have been linked to the abiotic habitat requirements of each constituent mosquito species, but the biotic interactions between mosquitoes and other species are less well understood. Determining which fauna restrict the presence and abundance of key mosquito species in vector communities may identify species which could be employed as natural biological control agents. Whilst biotic interactions have been studied in the laboratory, a lack of appropriate statistical methods has prohibited the identification of key interactions which influence mosquito distributions in the field. Joint species distribution models (JSDMs) have recently been developed to identify biotic interactions influencing the distributions of species from empirical data.MethodsWe apply a JSDM to field data on the spatial distribution of mosquitoes in a UK wetland to identify both abiotic factors and biotic interactions driving the composition of the community.ResultsAs expected, mosquito larval distributions in this wetland habitat are strongly driven by environmental covariates including water depth, temperature and oxidation-reduction potential. By factoring out these environmental variables, we are able to identify species (ditch shrimp of the genus Palaemonetes and fish) as predators which appear to restrict mosquito distributions.ConclusionsJSDMs offer vector ecologists a way to identify potentially important biotic interactions influencing the distributions of disease vectors from widely available field data. This information is crucial to understand the likely effects of habitat management for vector control and to identify species with the potential for use in biological control programmes. We provide an R package BayesComm to enable the wider application of these models.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13071-015-0915-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Spatial variation in the risk of many mosquito-borne pathogens is strongly influenced by the distribution of communities of suitable vector mosquitoes
Whilst transmission of some mosquito-borne diseases (MBDs) is entirely dependent on single mosquito species, most MBDs may be transmitted by multiple species [2]
Understanding the ecology and mapping the spatial distribution of these mosquito communities is essential for efficient control of globally important diseases such as malaria [3, 4]
Summary
Spatial variation in the risk of many mosquito-borne pathogens is strongly influenced by the distribution of communities of suitable vector mosquitoes. Determining which fauna restrict the presence and abundance of key mosquito species in vector communities may identify species which could be employed as natural biological control agents. The spatial distribution of mosquito-borne diseases (MBDs) is dependent on the distribution of suitable vector species [1]. For some zoonotic MBDs, transmission between sylvatic hosts and to humans requires the presence of multiple species. Such a transmision cycle is exemplified by West Nile virus (WNV). WNV is sustained in an avian sylvatic cycle by ‘maintenance’ mosquito species which must both be ornithophagic and competent for transmission of the virus. The risk of human WNV cases is restricted to areas where susceptible avian
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