Identifying and quantifying relationships between precipitation and Culex spp. mosquito abundance
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Date
2024-12
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
West Nile virus (WNV) is a vector-borne disease transmitted through Culex spp. mosquitoes. Culex. spp. mosquitoes progress through four stages throughout their life cycle: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. Adult Culex spp. mosquitoes are the only stage of the mosquito that lives outside the water. Since three of the four stages of the mosquito stages are aquatic, we expect a relationship between precipitation amounts and abundance of adult mosquitoes. Quantifying this relationship would allow us to identify and predict how mosquito populations and WNV transmission might change due to climate change.
The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) provides rich data sets that we can analyze to quantify the between precipitation and mosquito abundance. We analyzed throughfall precipitation and mosquitoes collected at one NEON site, BLAN, located in Clarke County, VA. We calculated the mean daily precipitation and summed precipitation accumulated before each mosquito trapping event. We compared the summed mean precipitation with mosquito abundance data. We ran a correlation test to quantify the relationship between precipitation and Culex spp. adult mosquito abundance. We found no correlation between precipitation and adult mosquito abundance (p-value was 0.76).
Since no correlation was found between precipitation and abundance, it can be concluded the sum of throughfall precipitation one month before the mosquito sampling does not have a direct impact on the abundance of adult Culex spp. mosquitoes. Comparing the two datasets posed many challenges because they used different data collection methods with different frequency and timing of data collection. These conclusions cannot be generalized as the U.S has a broad range of climates. Further research about this topic can help to inform public health officials on the proper methods to protect the public from WNV.
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Keywords
Public Health, Mosquito Abundance, Precipitation, Disease Ecology