Modelling Aedes aegypti mosquito control via transgenic and sterile insect techniques: Endemics and emerging outbreaks

Abstract

The invasion of pest insects often changes or destroys a native ecosystem, and can result in food shortages and disease endemics. Issues such as the environmental effects of chemical control methods, the economic burden of maintaining control strategies and the risk of pest resistance still remain, and mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever prevail in many countries, infecting over 100 million worldwide in 2010. One environmentally friendly method for mosquito control is the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT). This species-specific method of insect control relies on the mass rearing, sterilization and release of large numbers of sterile insects. An alternative transgenic method is the Release of Insects carrying a Dominant Lethal (RIDL). Our objective is to consider contrasting control strategies for two invasive scenarios via SIT and RIDL: an endemic case and an emerging outbreak. We investigate how the release rate and size of release region influence both the potential for control success and the resources needed to achieve it, under a range of conditions and control strategies, and we discuss advantageous strategies with respect to reducing the release resources and strategy costs (in terms of control mosquito numbers) required to achieve complete eradication of wild-type mosquitoes.

Modelling sterile insect technique to control the population of Anopheles gambiae

“… when carried out with a larval habitat control program (mechanical control). [ 49 ] Lee et al 2013 Modelled EBS & LBS in Ae. aegypti mosquitoes Difference equation model similar to [ 22 ] under endemic and emerging outbreak but look at an endemic case and emerging scenarios.…”

Dengue fever virus in Pakistan: effects of seasonal pattern and temperature change on distribution of vector and virus

“…They mate with insects (wild) of the same species, which reduced reproduction of that wild pest . This program was less successful because of somatic damage and performance reduction by insects . But modern genetics has a potential to overcome this problem by introducing self‐limiting genes that are engineered .…”

Male competition and the evolution of mating and life history traits in experimental populations ofAedes aegypti

“…Mosquito reproductive control strategies [1] are in various stages of implementation [2–7], with facilities required to produce male mosquitoes at an industrial scale (millions/week) in order to sustain mass releases into the wild [8]. At this scale, even small deficits in the competitive mating success of released males against wild males potentially translate to large production and economic costs [9,10]. Release males will likely undergo many generations in the laboratory with potential for the mating competitiveness of these strains to be reduced by both a loss of heterozygosity [11] and laboratory selection [11,12].…”