Abstract
.The Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus, transmits several arboviruses of public health importance, including chikungunya and dengue. Since its introduction to the United States in 1985, the species has invaded more than 40 states, including temperate areas not previously at risk of Aedes-transmitted arboviruses. Mathematical models incorporate climatic variables in predictions of site-specific Ae. albopictus abundances to identify human populations at risk of disease. However, these models rely on coarse resolutions of environmental data that may not accurately represent the climatic profile experienced by mosquitoes in the field, particularly in climatically heterogeneous urban areas. In this study, we pair field surveys of larval and adult Ae. albopictus mosquitoes with site-specific microclimate data across a range of land use types to investigate the relationships between microclimate, density of larval habitat, and adult mosquito abundance and determine whether these relationships change across an urban gradient. We find no evidence for a difference in larval habitat density or adult abundance between rural, suburban, and urban land classes. Adult abundance increases with increasing larval habitat density, which itself is dependent on microclimate. Adult abundance is strongly explained by microclimate variables, demonstrating that theoretically derived, laboratory-parameterized relationships in ectotherm physiology apply to the field. Our results support the continued use of temperature-dependent models to predict Ae. albopictus abundance in urban areas.
Highlights
The Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus, is an invasive mosquito that became established in the United States following its introduction in 1985.1,2 Aedes albopictus can transmit several pathogens of public health importance, including La Crosse,[3] dengue,[4,5] and chikungunya viruses.[6]
Availability of larval habitat can be a strong determinant of adult mosquito abundances, and few models include these in their predictions
We found that both climate and larval habitat influenced adult mosquito abundance, climate was a stronger predictor of adult abundance and the functional relationship between microclimate and adult abundance matches predictions based on theories of ectotherm physiology.[41]
Summary
The Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus, is an invasive mosquito that became established in the United States following its introduction in 1985.1,2 Aedes albopictus can transmit several pathogens of public health importance, including La Crosse,[3] dengue,[4,5] and chikungunya viruses.[6] Unlike another vector of these diseases, Aedes aegypti, which originated in east Africa, Ae. albopictus originated from a temperate area of Asia and is able to survive in cooler climates than Ae. aegypti. Ae. albopictus is sensitive to variation in temperature because of temperature-dependent life history traits, such as development rates, fecundity, and survival.[14,15,16] Climate or meteorological predictors are widely used in mechanistic models and statistical models.[17,18,19,20,21,22] Models leverage these relationships to predict mosquito presence, population growth rates, and abundances based on temperature metrics derived from weather stations or remotely sensed datasets. Urban landscapes are composed of a variety of land classes (e.g., residential, developed, and vegetated), which vary in their microclimates at fine spatial
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