How do Aedes mosquito genetics affect their habitat choice?

Methods

Summary

Mr. Norris will spend June-August 2019 collecting mosquito species in our collaborating counties. As both counties currently survey on Monday nights, our project will collect on Tuesday and Thursday nights for logistical feasibility. Mr. Norris will set-out twenty traps (10 BG sentinel [Figure 1] and 10 Gravid [Figure 2]) in each county’s un-serviced areas. The traps will be set-out during dusk and collected the following dawn to ensure optimal sample collection and preservation. Mr. Norris will take traps to the respective county mosquito control laboratories, where they have agreed to provide him space to sort and identify mosquitos. Mosquito site identification will be taught via each county’s laboratory director using CDC’s taxonomy keys (https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/ehs/docs/pictorial_keys/mosquitoes.pdf). The insecticide resistance and population genetics portion of the proposal will be performed by our collaborator, Dr. Matt DeGennaro at Florida International University. Following sorting and identification, Mr. Norris will take count of each species and gender by collection location using EpiInfo v7.2.2.6 (CDC, Atlanta, GA). Lastly, he will ship dead female Aedes mosquitos to Dr. DeGennaro’s laboratory using prepaid FedEx shipping envelopes and adhering to IATA and USC’s Occupational Health shipping guidelines.

Challenges

Project challenges may include unforeseen, inaccessible sites like on private property or land owned by other parties. This may affect the external validity depending on how representative sites are and how many we will have access to. We plan to overcome these challenges by incentivizing owners by acknowledging that the traps may reduce the nuisance of local mosquitoes (e.g. a trap attracting mosquitoes away from visiting tourists) and by providing owners with local results.

Pre Analysis Plan

We suspect that changes in mosquito population genetics may have increased the ability of mosquitoes to resist certain insecticides. This can be explored by working in collaboration with local agencies to examine this possibility. This collaboration is also integral to dealing with multiple outcomes and variance because the counties may be able to help address and interpret the practical significances of unforeseen results. At the end of the period, Mr. Norris will work closely with Dr. Nolan to prepare a report of collected species and their respective insecticide resistance (data obtained from Dr. DeGennaro’s lab). This report will include descriptive statistics and hotspot clustering geospatial analyses. This final report will be presented to each county mosquito control’s director and study team to inform their next year’s trapping location decisions. Additionally, Mr. Norris will submit a late-breaker abstract for a poster presentation for the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene’s annual conference in Washington, DC (Nov 20-24, 2019).