Optical remote sensing for monitoring flying mosquitoes, gender identification and discussion on species identification

Adrien P Genoud,Roman Basistyy,Benjamin P Thomas,Gregory M Williams

doi:10.1007/s00340-018-6917-x

Abstract

Mosquito-borne diseases are a major challenge for Human health as they affect nearly 700 million people every year and result in over 1 million deaths. Reliable information on the evolution of population and spatial distribution of key insects species is of major importance in the development of eco-epidemiologic models. This paper reports on the remote characterization of flying mosquitoes using a continuous-wave infrared optical remote sensing system. The system is setup in a controlled environment to mimic long-range lidars, mosquitoes are free flying at a distance of ~ 4 m from the collecting optics. The wing beat frequency is retrieved from the backscattered light from mosquitoes transiting through the laser beam. A total of 427 transit signals have been recorded from three mosquito species, males and females. Since the mosquito species and gender are known a priori, we investigate the use of wing beat frequency as the sole predictor variable for two Bayesian classifications: gender alone (two classes) and species/gender (six classes). The gender of each mosquito is retrieved with a 96.5% accuracy while the species/gender of mosquitoes is retrieved with a 62.3% accuracy. Known to be an efficient mean to identify insect family, we discuss the limitations of using wing beat frequency alone to identify insect species.

Highlights

Mosquito-borne diseases are a major challenge for human health as they affect nearly 700 million people every year and result in over 1 million deaths [1,2,3,4]
We argue that a viable alternative to the existing methods lies in optical remote sensing technologies such as lidars
In the case of gender identification, results show that male and female are discriminated with an overall accuracy of 96.5% despite the broad range of possible frequency of male and female mosquitoes of different species

Summary

Introduction

Mosquito-borne diseases are a major challenge for human health as they affect nearly 700 million people every year and result in over 1 million deaths [1,2,3,4]. Vector control strategies, such as environmental, chemical and biological controls, remain the most effective ways to tackle this issue for multiple reasons: (1) many diseases such as dengue fever, West Nile virus, or Zika virus still have no effective cure; (2) when vaccines or effective treatments exist, they may remain unavailable or unaffordable to large population groups; (3) even in developed countries where populations have access to high quality healthcare, the disease and/or treatments may still cause major nuisances and discomfort. The World Health Organization in its Global Strategy for Dengue Prevention [11] states that “surveillance is a critical component of any dengue prevention and control program because it provides the information necessary for risk assessment and program guidance, including epidemic response and program evaluation”

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion