Mosquito Communities Vary across Landscape and Vertical Strata in Indian River County, Florida

Abstract

Mosquito and arbovirus surveillance is essential to the protection of public health. A majority of surveys are undertaken at ground level. However, mosquitoes shelter, breed, and quest for hosts across vertical strata, thus limiting our ability to fully describe mosquito and arboviral communities. To elucidate patterns of mosquito vertical stratification, canopy traps were constructed to sample mosquitoes at heights of 1.5, 5.0, and 8.7 m across three different landscape types in a Florida coastal conservation area. We assessed trapping efforts using individual-based rarefaction and extrapolation. The effects of height, landscape, site location, and sampling date on mosquito community composition were parsed out using permutational ANOVA on a Hellinger-transformed Bray–Curtis dissimilarity abundance matrix. Lastly, a generalized linear mixed effects model (GLMM) was used to explore species-specific vertical patterns. We observed differences in sampling effort and community composition structure across various heights and landscapes. Our GLMM revealed significant effects of trap height for Aedes taeniorhynchus, Anopheles crucians, Anopheles quadrimaculatus, and Culex coronator, but not for Culex nigripalpus, the ultra-dominant species present in this area. Together these data provide evidence that height and landscape significantly affect mosquito community structures and highlight a need to develop sampling regimes to target specific vector and nuisance species at their preferred height and across different landscape types.

The influence of humidity and temperature on the vertical richness and abundance of blood-sucking flies (Culicidae and Ceratopogonidae) in a montane cloud forest in Mexico

“…In the case of Cx. nigripalpus , we found it across the whole vertical gradient, as other studies have reported (Nayar 1982, Giordano et al 2021). Although Ma.…”

“…stigmatosoma –a nocturnal species observed mainly in the canopy (Mian et al 1990, Reisen et al 1990), but differs from Cx. salinarius that has been found in the lower strata in Florida (Giordano et al 2021). Our results provide the first report of distribution patterns for the species Wy.…”

Landscape Composition Affects Elements of Metacommunity Structure for Culicidae Across South-Eastern Illinois

“…Other studies that have investigated the effect of landscape on community composition of Culicidae have likewise found that landscape type affects the structure of mosquito communities ( 66 ). In the same study, a non-significant effect of sampling period was reported which was probably due to the climatic conditions of the subtropical zone.…”