Control of Dengue Carrier Aedes Mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) Larvae by Larvivorous Fishes and Putting It into Practice Within Water Bodies

There is growing awareness on the effects of insecticides used for controlling the vectors spreading human diseases. Manipulating or introducing of a self reproducing predator into the ecosystem may present continual biological control of vector populations. In order to achieve an acceptable control of the primary Aedes aegypti (Linnaeus) and secondary Aedes albopictus (Skuse) mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) as vectors of dengue fever, this study puts side by side a range of control methods and found that keeping fishes is the most effective strategy. Larval control of vector mosquitoes appears to be promising in rural and urban areas, given that the density of humans needing protection against dengue is higher than the limited number of breeding sites. One of the most successful and widely used biological control agents against mosquito is the top water minnow or mosquitofish Gambusia affinis (Baird & Girard) that can consume 100 to 300 larvae per day. Fish other than Gambusia which has received the most attention as a mosquito control agent is guppy Poecilia reticulate (Peters), and single fish can eat about 80 to 100 mosquito larvae per day. Both these larvivorous fishes such as Gambusia and Poecilia are small in size and inedible, highly tolerant and carnivorous, prefer shallow water and frequent to the margins of the water bodies where mosquito larvae also breed. The use of biologically managed larviciding fishes for the control of dengue disease carrier mosquitoes is feasible and effective only when breeding sites of vectors are relatively identified and treated. These fish can be placed in ornamental ponds, stock watering tanks, ponds without game fish, and a variety of other locations as biological control agents for mosquito larvae. When these predators are placed in container habitats, decorative ponds and pools, they prey on mosquito larvae for effectively preventing mosquito’s development. For self perpetuating control of dengue vectors, the implementation of larvivorous fish should be accompanied by an adequate participatory education of peoples to make it more acceptable and potentially sustainable for communities. When biological tools are not always feasible in certain container habitats and all water storage containers cannot be removed, cleaned or covered, then a combination of mosquito control devices can be more effective. One of the benefits of integrated vector management (IVM) is that it overcomes the disadvantages of using individual methods, proves popular in certain trials and shows great promise for controlling disease carrying mosquitoes.