Short-Term, Large-Area Survey of Container Aedes spp. (Diptera: Culicidae): Presence and Abundance is Associated with Fine-scale Landscape Factors in North Carolina, USA

Michael H Reiskind; Diane M Styers; Isaac Hayes; Stephanie L Richards; Michael S Doyle; Emily Mx Reed; Brandon Hollingsworth; Brian D Byrd

doi:10.1177/1178630220952806

Short-Term, Large-Area Survey of Container Aedes spp. (Diptera: Culicidae): Presence and Abundance is Associated with Fine-scale Landscape Factors in North Carolina, USA

Environ Health Insights. 2020 Sep 21:14:1178630220952806. doi: 10.1177/1178630220952806. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Michael H Reiskind¹, Diane M Styers², Isaac Hayes^{2

3}, Stephanie L Richards⁴, Michael S Doyle^{5

6}, Emily Mx Reed¹, Brandon Hollingsworth⁷, Brian D Byrd⁸

Affiliations

¹ Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA.
² Department of Geosciences and Natural Resources, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC, USA.
³ Department of Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA.
⁴ Department of Health Education and Promotion, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, USA.
⁵ Division of Public Health, Communicable Disease Branch, North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, 1902 Mail Services Center, Raleigh, NC, USA.
⁶ Department of Biology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA.
⁷ Biomathematics Graduate Program, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA.
⁸ Environmental Health Sciences Program, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC, USA.

Abstract

Container Aedes mosquitoes are responsible for the transmission of anthroponotic and zoonotic viruses to people. The surveillance and control of these mosquitoes is an important part of public health protection and prevention of mosquito-borne disease. In this study, we surveyed 327 sites over 2 weeks in late June and early July in 2017 in North Carolina, USA for the presence and abundance of Aedes spp. eggs in an effort to better target potential Ae. aegypti collections. We examined the ability of 2 types of landscape data, Light Detection And Ranging (LIDAR) and National Land Cover Database (NLCD) to explain the presence and abundance of eggs using principal component analysis to deal with collinearity, followed by generalized linear regression. We explained variation of both egg presence and abundance for Aedes albopictus (Skuse) and Aedes triseriatus (Say) using both NLCD and LIDAR data. However, the ability to make robust predictions was limited by variation in the data. Increased sampling time and better landscape data would likely improve the predictive ability of our models, as would a better understanding of oviposition behavior.

Keywords: Aedes albopictus; LIDAR; Light detection and ranging; mosquito ecology.