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Human Activities Attract Harmful Mosquitoes in a Tropical Urban Landscape

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Abstract

Knowledge of the interrelationship of mosquito communities and land use changes is of paramount importance to understand the potential risk of mosquito disease transmission. This study examined the effects of land use types in urban, peri-urban and natural landscapes on mosquito community structure to test whether the urban landscape is implicated in increased prevalence of potentially harmful mosquitoes. Three land use types (park, farm, and forest nested in urban, peri-urban and natural landscapes, respectively) in Klang Valley, Malaysia, were surveyed for mosquito larval habitat, mosquito abundance and diversity. We found that the nature of human activities in land use types can increase artificial larval habitats, supporting container-breeding vector specialists such as Aedes albopictus, a dengue vector. In addition, we observed a pattern of lower mosquito richness but higher mosquito abundance, characterised by the high prevalence of Ae. albopictus in the urban landscape. This was also reflected in the mosquito community structure whereby urban and peri-urban landscapes were composed of mainly vector species compared to a more diverse mosquito composition in natural landscape. This study suggested that good environmental management practices in the tropical urban landscape are of key importance for effective mosquito-borne disease management.

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The data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article and its supplementary information files.

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Acknowledgements

This work was part of the research for Ph.D. by LJM at Monash University Malaysia (MUM) funded by Tropical Medicine and Biology Platform to RS, School of Science PhD fellowship to LJM and School of Science Seed Grant to YSH.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Science, Monash University Malaysia, Building 4, Level 8, Room 36 (4-8-36), Jalan Lagoon Selatan, 47500, Bandar Sunway, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia

    J. M. Lee, R. J. Wasserman, J. Y. Gan, R. F. Wilson, S. Rahman & S. H. Yek

  2. Department of Biology and Biotechnology, Botswana International University of Science and Technology, Palapye, Botswana

    R. J. Wasserman

  3. Tropical Medicine and Biology Platform, Monash University Malaysia, Jalan Lagoon Selatan, 47500, Bandar Sunway, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia

    J. M. Lee & S. Rahman

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  1. J. M. Lee
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Lee, J.M., Wasserman, R.J., Gan, J.Y. et al. Human Activities Attract Harmful Mosquitoes in a Tropical Urban Landscape. EcoHealth 17, 52–63 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-019-01457-9

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