Abstract
Suburbanization is happening rapidly on a global scale, resulting in changes to the species assemblages present in previously undeveloped areas of land. Community-level changes after anthropogenic land-use change have been studied in a variety of organisms, but the effects on arthropods of medical and veterinary importance remain poorly characterized. Shifts in diversity, abundance, and community composition of such arthropods, like mosquitoes, can significantly impact vector-borne disease dynamics due to varying vectorial capacity between different species. In light of these potential implications for vector-borne diseases, we investigated changes in mosquito species assemblage after suburbanization by sampling mosquitoes in neighborhoods of different ages in Wake County, North Carolina, US. We found that independent of housing density and socioeconomic status, mosquito diversity measures decreased as suburban neighborhoods aged. In the oldest neighborhoods, the mosquito assemblage reached a distinct suburban climax community dominated by the invasive, peridomestic container-breeding Aedes albopictus, the Asian tiger mosquito. Aedes albopictus is a competent vector of many pathogens of human concern, and its dominance in suburban areas places it in close proximity with humans, allowing for heightened potential of host-vector interactions. While further research is necessary to explicitly characterize the effects of mosquito community simplification on vector-borne disease transmission in highly suburbanized areas, the current study demonstrates that suburbanization is disrupting mosquito communities so severely that they do not recover their diversity even 100 years after the initial disturbance. Our understanding of the community-level effects of anthropogenic land-use change on arthropod vectors will become increasingly important as we look to mitigate disease spread in a global landscape that is continually developed and altered by humans.
Highlights
In comparing suburban neighborhoods with wooded and field sites, we found that the oldest neighborhoods have mosquito communities that are less species rich, less even, and less diverse when compared with either of the natural habitats
Dominant among this suburban mosquito assemblage is the invasive species Aedes albopictus, whose abundance is positively correlated with neighborhood age
We performed linear regressions to assess the effect of neighborhood age, housing density, home price, and income on our three diversity measures
Summary
Butterfly diversity in an area of former oak woodlands in Palo Alto, California is lowest in the most urbanized areas, but in this case, even moderate levels of land development are detrimental to the natural species assemblage despite the overall intermediate disturbance diversity peak [12] It is currently unclear whether the fine-scale heterogeneity in land-use associated with suburban development may lead to increases in mosquito biodiversity compared to that in natural woodlands or grasslands, as is seen with other species [15,16,17]. Changes in the diversity or evenness of a community could affect vector-borne disease transmission if the species assemblage is shifted toward one dominated by mosquitoes with greater vectorial capacity This is relevant in suburban areas, as these disturbed environments place vector mosquitoes in close proximity and routine contact with hosts, including humans and their companion animals, which may increase risk for disease spread [4,18]. We tested these a priori predictions by establishing a chronosequence of suburban developments in which to sample mosquitoes, and comparing these species assemblages to those present in uncultivated field and woodlot areas
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