Abstract
Abstract Mosquito community dynamics in urban areas are influenced by an array of both social and ecological factors. Human socioeconomic factors (SEF) can be related to mosquito abundance and diversity as urban mosquito development sites are modified by varying human activity, e.g., level of abandoned structures or amount of accumulated trash. The goal of this study was to investigate the relationships among mosquito diversity, populations of Aedes aegypti, and SEF in a tropical urban setting. Mosquitoes were collected using BG Sentinel 2 traps and CDC light traps during three periods between late 2018 and early 2019 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and were identified to species. SEFs (i.e. median household income, population density, college-level educational attainment, unemployment, health insurance coverage, percentage of households below the poverty line, amount of trash and level of abandoned homes) were measured using foot surveys and U.S. Census data. We found 19 species with the two most abundant species being Culex quinquefasciatus (n = 10 641, 87.6%) and Ae. aegypti (n = 1558, 12.8%). We found a positive association between Ae. aegypti abundance and mosquito diversity, which were both negatively related to SES and ecological factors. Specifically, lower socioeconomic status neighborhoods had both more Ae. aegypti and more diverse communities, due to more favorable development habitat, indicating that control efforts should be focused in these areas.
Highlights
Both biotic and abiotic factors combine to explain the distribution of species on a global scale
No strong correlations were found among species, except between Ae. tortilis and Cx. nigripalpus (þ0.968). This is the first study conducted in San Juan examining how socioeconomic status (SES) and ecological variables affect the abundance of Ae. aegypti and communities of mosquitoes
Our study focused on mosquito communities in urban environments with a more indepth examination of Ae. aegypti, the primary arbovirus disease vector in Puerto Rico
Summary
Both biotic and abiotic factors combine to explain the distribution of species on a global scale. Abiotic factors, such as elevation and latitude, play an important role in explaining the distribution of species (Pavoine and Bonsall 2011; Bertuzzo et al 2016). The effect of time since urbanization on diversity has been less studied (McKinney 2008), VC The Author(s) 2021.
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