BACKGROUND A clear understanding of mosquito biology is fundamental to the control efforts of mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria. Mosquito mark-release-recapture (MMRR) experiments are a popular method of measuring the survival and dispersal of disease vectors; however, examples with African malaria vectors are limited. Ethical and technical difficulties involved in carrying out MMRR studies may have held back research in this area and, therefore, a device that marks mosquitoes as they emerge from breeding sites was developed and evaluated to overcome the problems of MMRR. METHODS A modified self-marking unit that marks mosquitoes with fluorescent pigment as they emerge from their breeding site was developed based on a previous design for Culex mosquitoes. The self-marking unit was first evaluated under semi-field conditions with laboratory-reared Anopheles arabiensis to determine the marking success and impact on mosquito survival. Subsequently, a field evaluation of MMRR was conducted in Yombo village, Tanzania, to examine the feasibility of the system. RESULTS During the semi-field evaluation the self-marking units successfully marked 86% of emerging mosquitoes and there was no effect of fluorescent marker on mosquito survival. The unit successfully marked wild male and female Anopheles gambiae sensu lato (s.l.) in sufficiently large numbers to justify its use in MMRR studies. The estimated daily survival probability of An. gambiae s.l. was 0.87 (95% CI 0.69-1.10) and mean dispersal distance was 579 m (95% CI 521-636 m). CONCLUSIONS This study demonstrates the successful use of a self-marking device in an MMRR study with African malaria vectors. This method may be useful in investigating population structure and dispersal of mosquitoes for deployment and evaluation of future vector control tools, such as gene drive, and to better parameterize mathematical models.

中文翻译：

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开发和评估用于估计疟疾病媒存活和传播距离的自标记单元。


背景技术对蚊子生物学的清晰了解对于控制蚊媒疾病（例如疟疾）至关重要。蚊子标记-释放-再捕获 (MMRR) 实验是测量病媒存活和扩散的常用方法；然而，非洲疟疾媒介的例子有限。进行 MMRR 研究涉及的伦理和技术困难可能阻碍了该领域的研究，因此，开发并评估了一种在蚊子从繁殖地出现时对其进行标记的装置，以克服 MMRR 的问题。方法 基于之前针对库蚊的设计，开发了一种改进的自标记装置，当蚊子从繁殖地出现时，用荧光色素对其进行标记。首先在半野外条件下对实验室饲养的阿拉伯按蚊进行了自我标记装置的评估，以确定标记的成功程度以及对蚊子生存的影响。随后，在坦桑尼亚永博村对MMRR进行了现场评估，以检验该系统的可行性。结果 在半现场评估过程中，自标记装置成功标记了 86% 的新生蚊子，并且荧光标记对蚊子的存活没有影响。该单位成功标记了足够多的野生雄性和雌性冈比亚按蚊（sl），以证明其在 MMRR 研究中的使用是合理的。 An 的估计每日生存概率。冈比亚 sl 为 0.87 (95% CI 0.69-1.10)，平均扩散距离为 579 m (95% CI 521-636 m)。结论 这项研究证明了自标记装置在非洲疟疾载体 MMRR 研究中的成功使用。 该方法可能有助于研究蚊子的种群结构和扩散，以部署和评估未来的病媒控制工具（例如基因驱动），并更好地参数化数学模型。