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4 October 2019 Aedes albopictus Body Size Differs Across Neighborhoods With Varying Infrastructural Abandonment
Grace Katz, Paul T. Leisnham, Shannon L. LaDeau
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Abstract

Mosquitoes pose an increasing risk in urban landscapes, where spatial heterogeneity in juvenile habitat can influence fine-scale differences in mosquito density and biting activity. We examine how differences in juvenile mosquito habitat along a spectrum of urban infrastructure abandonment can influence the adult body size of the invasive tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus (Skuse) (Diptera: Culicidae). Adult Ae. albopictus were collected across 3 yr (2015–2017) from residential blocks in Baltimore, MD, that varied in abandonment level, defined by the proportion of houses with boarded-up doors. We show that female Ae. albopictus collected from sites with higher abandonment were significantly larger than those collected from higher income, low abandonment blocks. Heterogeneity in mosquito body size, including wing length, has been shown to reflect differences in important traits, including longevity and vector competence. The present work demonstrates that heterogeneity in female size may reflect juvenile habitat variability across the spatial scales most relevant to adult Aedes dispersal and human exposure risk in urban landscapes. Previous work has shown that failure to manage abandonment and waste issues in impoverished neighborhoods supports greater mosquito production, and this study suggests that mosquitoes in these same neighborhoods could live longer, produce more eggs, and have different vector potential.

© 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.
Grace Katz, Paul T. Leisnham, and Shannon L. LaDeau "Aedes albopictus Body Size Differs Across Neighborhoods With Varying Infrastructural Abandonment," Journal of Medical Entomology 57(2), 615-619, (4 October 2019). https://doi.org/10.1093/jme/tjz170
Received: 19 June 2019; Accepted: 29 August 2019; Published: 4 October 2019
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KEYWORDS
development
ecology and population dynamics
life history
vector ecology
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