Residual Pesticide On Hesco® Blast Protection Wall In Temperate Florida Habitat Effective Against Mosquitoes, Stable Flies, and Sand Flies

Abstract

United States military troops in the field are exposed to the environment and are thus at high risk for transmission of arboviruses, and degradation of mission from continual harassment from insects. Passive vector control, such as application of residual insecticides to US military materials common in the field such as tents and camouflage netting, has been shown to be effective and can contribute to a successful integrated vector management (IVM) plan in the field to reduce this risk. However, other common US military field materials have not been evaluated with residual pesticides. In this study we conducted the first known investigation of the efficacy and longevity of a residual pesticide containing λ-cyhalothrin applied to HESCO® blast protection wall geotextile. We exposed treated material to a temperate Florida environment and found that this treatment can be effective against sand flies, filth-breeding flies, and mosquitoes for at least 6 wk. This study provides evidence that residual treatment of this US military material may be leveraged as an IVM component to enhance the US Department of Defense pest management system.

Spatial Repellents Protect Small Perimeters from Riceland Mosquitoes in a Warm-Humid Environment

“…For example, Britch et al (2011) reported reduction of mosquito numbers inside open-top enclosures of US military camouflage netting in a hot-arid environment in southern California when the surface of the fabric wall was treated with a residual insecticide. The significance of this finding is that a passive layer of control may be automatically situated in the field by pretreatment of materials such as camouflage netting, tent exteriors (Frances 2007), or blast wall geotextile (Britch et al 2018) that are already organic to deploying US military units.…”

Transfluthrin Spatial Repellent on US Military Materials Reduces Culex tarsalis Incursion in a Desert Environment

“…Residual pesticide treatment of US military materials is important in military integrated vector management (IVM) because these materials exist nearly everywhere US military personnel are positioned in the field. Pretreatment of US military field materials, such as tents (Frances 2007), camouflage netting (Britch et al 2011), or the geotextile in blast protection walls (Britch et al 2018), with a residual pesticide could automatically establish the 1st layers of an effective IVM system when these materials, already organic to units deploying to austere environments, are formed into perimeters around outposts or bivouacs. However, host-seeking mosquitoes may still enter perimeters treated with standard residuals, such as k-cyhalothrin, without contacting treated surfaces or may contact treated surfaces but retain mobility and host-seeking behavior long enough to contact humans (Britch, personal observations;Viana et al 2016), and in the long run this technique could induce the evolution of resistance because the treatment is lethal to target insects (Hoy 1998).…”

Pesticide Misting System Enhances Residual Pesticide Treatment of HESCO Geotextile

“…On August 5, 2013, we set up 5 experimental enclosures constructed of brown geotextile HESCO MIL barriers (Szabó et al 2011) following the methods described in Britch et al (2018) in a hot-arid desert site in the Coachella Valley, CA (Britch et al 2009). We oriented the 5 enclosures in an approximate north-south line among sparse vegetation, each separated from the next by approximately 25 m. We treated the northernmost 2 HESCO enclosures and the southernmost 2 enclosures with k-cyhalothrin as described in Britch et al (2018), leaving the middle enclosure as an untreated control unit.…”

“…We obtained H. convergens specimens through a commercial supplier (Arbico Organics, Oro Valley, AZ) in batches of 1200 every week for 3 wk in July 2014. Colony histories of the remaining colony organisms are described in Britch et al (2018).…”

“…The threshold of high efficacy of treated material, i.e., the number of days posttreatment before mortality fell below 90% (Britch et al 2018), is shown by the horizontal dashed line in each chart. The duration above high efficacy varied across the 5 bioassay organisms and in many cases varied within organisms depending on whether misting was present (Fig.…”