Climate, landscape, and life history jointly predict multidecadal community mosquito phenology

Abstract

Phenology of adult host-seeking female mosquitoes is a critical component for understanding potential for vector-borne pathogen maintenance and amplification in the natural environment. Despite this importance, long-term multi-species investigations of mosquito phenologies across environments and differing species’ life history traits are rare. Here we leverage long-term mosquito control district monitoring data to characterize annual phenologies of 7 host-seeking female mosquito species over a 20-year time period in suburban Illinois, USA. We also assembled data on landscape context, categorized into low and medium development, climate variables including precipitation, temperature and humidity, and key life history traits, i.e. overwintering stage and Spring–Summer versus Summer–mid-Fallseason fliers. We then fit linear mixed models separately for adult onset, peak abundances, and flight termination with landscape, climate and trait variables as predictors with species as a random effect. Model results supported some expectations, including warmer spring temperatures leading to earlier onset, warmer temperatures and lower humidity leading to earlier peak abundances, and warmer and wetter fall conditions leading to later termination. However, we also found sometimes complex interactions and responses contrary to our predictions. For example, temperature had generally weak support on its own, impacting onset and peak abundance timing; rather temperature has interacting effects with humidity or precipitation. We also found higher spring precipitation, especially in low development contexts, generally delayed adult onset, counter to expectations. These results emphasize the need to consider how traits, landscape and climatic factors all interact to determine mosquito phenology, when planning management strategies for vector control and public health protection.

The increasing threat of Rift Valley fever virus globalization: strategic guidance for protection and preparation

“…Models accounting for changes in these layers and potential arthropod vector population dynamics over time provide risk estimates for the example risk scenarios (i.e., Arrival , Transmission , Establishment ) described in the previous section, and should be updated and monitored regularly. The bottom-line objectives of targeted surveillance of potential RVFV mosquito and other arthropod vectors in at-risk regions is to accumulate data on relative populations sizes, seasonal timings, spatial extents, and species community compositions (Sallam et al 2013, 2023, Campbell et al 2023) that can be interpreted into risk of RVFV transmission should it arrive in that area.…”