Mosquito alert: leveraging citizen science to create a GBIF mosquito occurrence dataset

Živko Južnič-Zonta; Isis Sanpera-Calbet; Roger Eritja; John R B Palmer; Agustí Escobar; Joan Garriga; Aitana Oltra; Alex Richter-Boix; Francis Schaffner; Alessandra Della Torre; Miguel Ángel Miranda; Marion Koopmans; Luisa Barzon; Frederic Bartumeus Ferre; Mosquito Alert Digital Entomology Network; Mosquito Alert Community

doi:10.46471/gigabyte.54

Mosquito alert: leveraging citizen science to create a GBIF mosquito occurrence dataset

GigaByte. 2022 May 30:2022:gigabyte54. doi: 10.46471/gigabyte.54. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Živko Južnič-Zonta¹, Isis Sanpera-Calbet², Roger Eritja³, John R B Palmer², Agustí Escobar³, Joan Garriga¹, Aitana Oltra², Alex Richter-Boix³, Francis Schaffner⁴, Alessandra Della Torre⁵, Miguel Ángel Miranda⁶, Marion Koopmans⁷, Luisa Barzon⁸, Frederic Bartumeus Ferre^{1

3

9}; Mosquito Alert Digital Entomology Network; Mosquito Alert Community

Collaborators

Pedro María Alarcón-Elbal¹⁰, Mikel Alexander González¹¹, Maria Angeles Puig¹², Karin Bakran-Lebl^{13

14}, Georgios Balatsos¹⁵, Carlos Barceló⁶, Mikel Bengoa Paulis¹⁶, Marina Bisia¹⁵, Laura Blanco-Sierra¹⁷, Daniel Bravo-Barriga¹⁸, Beniamino Caputo¹⁹, Francisco Collantes²⁰, Hugo Costa Osório²¹, Marcela Curman Posavec²², Aleksandar Cvetkovikj²³, Isra Deblauwe²⁴, Sarah Delacour²⁵, Santi Escartin Peña²⁶, Martina Ferraguti²⁷, Eleonora Flacio²⁸, Hans-Peter Fuehrer¹⁴, Sandra Gewehr²⁸, Filiz Gunay²⁹, Rafael Gutiérrez-López⁶, Cintia Horváth³⁰, Adolfo Ibanez-Justicia³¹, Perparim Kadriaj³², Katja Kalan³³, Mihaela Kavran³⁴, Gábor Kemenesi³⁵, Ana Klobucar²², Kornélia Kurucz³⁵, Eleonora Longo¹⁹, Sergio Magallanes³⁶, Simone Mariani¹², Angeliki F Martinou³⁷, Rosario Melero-Alcíbar³⁸, Antonios Michaelakis¹⁵, Alice Michelutti³⁹, Ognyan Mikov⁴⁰, Tomas Montalvo¹⁷, Fabrizio Montarsi³⁹, Francesca Paoli⁴¹, Diego Parrondo Montón⁴², Elton Rogozi³², Ignacio Ruiz-Arrondo⁴³, Francesco Severini⁴⁴, Nikolina Sokolovska⁴⁵, Maria Sophia Unterköfler¹⁴, Arjan Stroo³¹, Steffanie Teekema³¹, Andrea Valsecchi¹⁷, Alexander G C Vaux⁴⁶, Enkelejda Velo³², Carina Zittra⁴⁷

Affiliations

¹ Centre d'Estudis Avançats de Blanes (CEAB-CSIC), C/d'accés a la Cala St. Francesc 14, 17300 Blanes, Girona, Spain.
² Departament de Ciències Polítiques i Socials, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Plaça de la Mercè, 10-12, 08002 Barcelona, Spain.
³ Centre de Recerca Ecològica i Aplicacions Forestals (CREAF), Edifici C Campus de, 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain.
⁴ Francis Schaffner Consultancy (FSC), Lörracherstrasse 50, 4125 Riehen, Switzerland.
⁵ Department Public Health and Infectious Diseases (UNIROMA1), Sapienza University, 00185 Rome, Italy.
⁶ University Balearic Islands, Applied Zoology and Animal Conservation Research Group (UIB), Ctra. Valldemossa km 7.5, 07122, Palma, Spain.
⁷ Erasmus University Medical Center (Erasmus MC), Doctor Molewaterplein 40, 3015 GD Rotterdam, Netherlands.
⁸ Department of Molecular Medicine (UNIPV), Università degli Studi di Padova, 63 Via Gabelli, 35121 Padova, Italy.
⁹ Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), 23 Passeig de Lluís Companys, 08010 Barcelona, Spain.
¹⁰ Universidad Cardenal Herrera CEU-CEU Universities, Facultad de Veterinaria, Veterinary Public Health and Food Science and Technology, Department of Animal Production and Health (PASAPTA), C/ Tirant lo Blanc, 7, 46115 Alfara del Patriarca, Valencia, Spain.
¹¹ Universidad Iberoamericana (UNIBE), Avenida Francia 129, 10203, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
¹² Centre d'Estudis Avançats de Blanes (CEAB-CSIC), C/ d'accés a la Cala St. Francesc 14, 17300 Blanes, Girona, Spain.
¹³ Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety, Division for Public Health (AGES), Währinger Strasse 25a, 1090, Vienna, Austria.
¹⁴ University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Institute of Parasitology (Vetmeduni), Veterinärplatz 1, 1210, Vienna, Austria.
¹⁵ Benaki Phytopathological Institute, Laboratory of Insects and Parasites of Medical Importance (BPI), 8, Stefanou Delta str., 14561 Kifissia, Athens, Greece.
¹⁶ Anticimex Spain (Anticimex), C/ Jesús Serra Santamans, 5, Planta 3, 08174, Sant Cugat del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain.
¹⁷ Agencia de Salud Pública de Barcelona (ASPB), Plaça Lesseps 8 entresol, 08023, Barcelona, Spain.
¹⁸ University of Extremadura, Veterinary Faculty, Department of Animal Health (Uex), Av/ Universidad S/N 10003 Cáceres, Spain.
¹⁹ Sapienza University, Department Public Health and Infectious Diseases (UNIROMA1), Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00198, Rome, Italy.
²⁰ Universidad de Murcia, Departamento de Zoología y Antropología Física (UM), Campus de Espinardo, 30100 Murcia, Spain.
²¹ National Institute of Health, Centre for Vectors and Infectious Diseases Research (INSA-CEVDI), Avenida Padre Cruz, 1649-016, Lisboa, Portugal.
²² Andrija Stampar Teaching Institute of Public Health (ASTIPH), Mirogojska c. 16, 10 000, Zagreb, Croatia.
²³ Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine-Skopje (FVMS), Lazar Pop-Trajkov 5-7, 1000, Skopje, North Macedonia.
²⁴ Institute of Tropical Medicine, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Unit of Entomology (ITM), Nationalestraat 155, 2000, Antwerp, Belgium.
²⁵ University of Zaragoza, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Zaragoza, Animal Health Department (UNIZAR), C/ Miguel Servet 177, 50013, Zaragoza, Spain.
²⁶ Associació Mediambiental Xatrac (Xatrac), C/ Pius Font i Quer, S/N, 17310, Lloret de Mar, Girona, Spain.
²⁷ University of Amsterdam, Department of Theoretical and Computational Ecology, Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (UvA), Science Park 904, 1098XH, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
²⁸ Ecodevelopment S.A. (ECODEV), Thesi Mezaria, PO Box 2420, 57010 Filyro, Greece.
²⁹ Hacettepe University, Department of Biology, Ecology Section, Vector Ecology Research Group (HU-VERG), Hacettepe University, Beytepe Campus, 06800, Ankara, Turkey.
³⁰ University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine of Cluj-Napoca (USAMV-CN), Calea Mănăştur 3-5, Cluj-Napoca, 400372, Romania.
³¹ Centre for Monitoring of Vectors, National Reference Centre, Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (CMV-NVWA), Geertjesweg 15, 6706 EA, Wageningen, Netherlands.
³² Institute of Public Health, Department of Epidemiology and Control of Infectious Diseases, Vectors' Control Unit (IPH), Str: "Aleksander Moisiu", No. 80, Tirana, Albania.
³³ University of Primorska, Faculty of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Information Technologies (UP FAMNIT), Glagoljaška ulica 8, 6000, Koper, Slovenia.
³⁴ University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Agriculture, Laboratory for Medical and Veterinary Entomology (UNSFA), Trg Dositeja Obradovića 8, 21000, Novi Sad, Serbia.
³⁵ University of Pécs (UP), Ifúság útja 6, 7624, Pécs, Hungary.
³⁶ Estación Biológica de Doñana, Departamento de Ecología de los Humedales (EBD-CSIC), Avda. Américo Vespucio 26, 41092, Sevilla, Spain.
³⁷ British Forces Cyprus, Joint Services Health Unit (JSHU), Cyprus.
³⁸ Centro de Educación Superior Hygiea (HYGIEA), Av. de Pablo VI, 9, 28223, Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, Spain.
³⁹ Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie (IZSVe), Viale dell'Università 10, 35020, Legnaro (Padua), Italy.
⁴⁰ National Centre of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases (NCIPD), 26, Yanko Sakazov blvd., 1504, Sofia, Bulgaria.
⁴¹ Museo di Scienze di Trento (MUSE), Corso del Lavoro e della Scienza, 3, 38122, Trento, Italy.
⁴² University of Applied Scieces and Arts of Southern Switzerland, Institute of Microbiology (SUPSI), Via Flora Ruchat-Roncati 15, 6850, Mendrisio Switzerland, Switzerland.
⁴³ Center for Rickettsiosis and Arthropod-Borne Diseases, Hospital Universitario San Pedro-CIBIR (CRETAV-CIBIR), C/Piqueras 98, 3° planta, 26006, La Rioja, Spain.
⁴⁴ Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Department of Infectious Diseases (ISS), Viale Regina Elena, 299, 00161, Roma, Italy.
⁴⁵ PHI Center for Public Health-Skopje (CPH), blv.3rd Macedonian brigade, no.18, Skopje, North Macedonia.
⁴⁶ Medical Entomology, UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), Porton Down, Salisbury, SP4 0JG, United Kingdom.
⁴⁷ University of Vienna, Department of Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (UNIVIE), Djerassiplatz 1, 1030, Vienna, Austria.

Abstract

The Mosquito Alert dataset includes occurrence records of adult mosquitoes collected worldwide in 2014-2020 through Mosquito Alert, a citizen science system for investigating and managing disease-carrying mosquitoes. Records are linked to citizen science-submitted photographs and validated by entomologists to determine the presence of five targeted European mosquito vectors: Aedes albopictus, Ae. aegypti, Ae. japonicus, Ae. koreicus, and Culex pipiens. Most records are from Spain, reflecting Spanish national and regional funding, but since autumn 2020 substantial records from other European countries are included, thanks to volunteer entomologists coordinated by the AIM-COST Action, and to technological developments to increase scalability. Among other applications, the Mosquito Alert dataset will help develop citizen science-based early warning systems for mosquito-borne disease risk. It can also be reused for modelling vector exposure risk, or to train machine-learning detection and classification routines on the linked images, to assist with data validation and establishing automated alert systems.

Grants and funding

2021–2022 Fair Computational Epidemiology (FACE); Plataforma Temática Interdisciplinar PTI+ Salud Global, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC); Grant No.: N/A.