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16 May 2019 Dispersal of the Mosquito Aedes vigilax (Diptera: Culicidae) From Urban Estuarine Wetlands in Sydney, Australia
Cameron E. Webb, Richard C. Russell
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Abstract

Aedes vigilax (Skuse) is a pest and vector species associated with coastal wetlands and the abundance of this mosquito has been identified as contributing to increased risk of mosquito-borne disease outbreaks. As urban development continues to encroach on these coastal wetlands, pest and public health impacts are becoming of increasing concern and in the absence of broadscale mosquito control. Urban planners are looking to buffer zones and other land use planning options to minimize contact between mosquitoes and humans but gaps in the understanding of dispersal ranges of mosquitoes hamper the adoption of these strategies. A mark-release-recapture experiment was conducted to measure the dispersal of this mosquito from an urban estuarine wetland in Sydney, Australia. An estimated total of over 150,000 wild caught female mosquitoes were marked with fluorescent dust and then released. A network of 38 traps was then operated for 5 d within an area of 28 km2. A total of 280 marked mosquitoes was recaptured, representing less than 1% of the estimate 250,000 marked mosquitoes released. Marked mosquitoes were recaptured up to 3 km from the release point, providing an insight into the dispersal range of these mosquitoes. The mean distance traveled by marked mosquitoes was 0.83 km, a result reflecting the greater proportion of marked mosquitoes recaptured near release point. The findings of this study indicate that effective buffer zones between estuarine wetlands and high-density urban developments would be an impractical approach to minimizing pest and public health impacts associated with this mosquito.

© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.
Cameron E. Webb and Richard C. Russell "Dispersal of the Mosquito Aedes vigilax (Diptera: Culicidae) From Urban Estuarine Wetlands in Sydney, Australia," Journal of Medical Entomology 56(5), 1290-1295, (16 May 2019). https://doi.org/10.1093/jme/tjz054
Received: 21 February 2019; Accepted: 24 March 2019; Published: 16 May 2019
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KEYWORDS
Aedes vigilax
dispersal
mark-release-recapture
mosquito
urban planning
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