| Project Detail |
Temperature impact on invasive mosquitoes
Mosquitoes can transmit infections such as malaria, caused by Plasmodium parasites, and dengue fever, caused by the dengue virus. East Asian mosquito species have adapted to different climates and their spread to several European countries poses a health threat. Although mathematical models can predict distribution and disease transmission, their accuracy is compromised. Funded by the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions programme, the IFTAMED project aims to enhance understanding of temperature impact on these mosquitoes. The work involves experiments under fluctuating temperatures, mimicking field conditions. The data will be shared in open-access databases and used to improve a population-dynamic model that can be employed to power an online early-warning system aiding mosquito control and management.
The East Asian mosquitoes species Aedes albopictus and Ae. koreicus are invading several European countries, posing an increasing threat to human and animal public health. The life cycle of mosquitoes is strongly driven by temperature, making feasible the implementation of mathematical models predicting their distribution, population dynamics, and arbovirus transmission risk to support mosquito and Mosquito-Borne Viral Diseases management and control actions. However, the models forecast reliability and biological realism are limited by the quantity and quality of the life-history traits observations used to inform the population dynamic model. This information is collected throughout laboratory experiments trying to assess the influence of temperature on different life-history traits (e.g. temperature-dependent adult mortality rate). Nevertheless, the results have been so far highly variable, due to i) different experimental settings and ii) multiple geographic origin of the biological specimens. |
