Egg hatching of winter-collected Ochlerotatus albifasciatus was studied for six months. Batches of eggs were divided into two groups, one of them was stored in the laboratory at 23 degrees C and 12:12 photoperiod, and the other in the field under dead leaves. Every month, from July to December, eggs from the two groups were flooded under both laboratory and field conditions. Unhatched eggs were...

Avian malaria (Plasmodium spp.) has been implicated in the decline of avian populations in the Hawaiian Islands and it is generally agreed that geographically isolated and immunologically naïve bird populations are particularly vulnerable to the pathogenic effects of invasive malaria parasites. In order to assess the potential disease risk of malaria to the avifauna of Socorro Island, México, w...

Multiple predator species can interact as well as strongly affect lower trophic levels, resulting in complex, nonadditive effects on prey populations and community structure. Studies of aquatic systems have shown that interactive effects of predators on prey are not necessarily predictable from the direct effects of each species alone. To test for complex interactions, the individual and combin...

BACKGROUND Models for the spatial distribution of vector species are important tools in the assessment of the risk of establishment and subsequent spread of vector-borne diseases. The aims of this study are to define the environmental conditions suitable for several mosquito species through species distribution modelling techniques, and to compare the results produced with the different techniq...

Larval mosquitoes are found in a variety of aquatic habitats, including freshwater and saline environments of diverse composition. Larval mosquitoes with three distinct osmoregulatory strategies can be described: freshwater osmoregulators, euryhaline osmoregulators and euryhaline osmoconformers (Bradley, 1987). At least two of these strategies are observed in closely related genera within the t...

Susceptibility tests were conducted using the World Health Organization diagnostic test procedure on strains of Aedes taeniorhynchus, Aedes sollicitans, Aedes vexans, and Culex nigripalpus collected from several localities in Charleston and Georgetown counties of South Carolina. Aedes taeniorhynchus was resistant to malathion (mortality 1.0-54.4%) but not to propoxur, permethrin, or fenitrothio...

Individuals of different sex, size or developmental stage can compete differently and hence contribute distinctively to population dynamics. In species with complex life cycles such as insects, competitive ability is often positively correlated with larval developmental stage. Yet, little is known on how the development and survival of early-instars is influenced by interference from late-insta...

Here, we report evaluation of five oligoprobes designed from intergenic spacer (IGS) region sequences for identification of cyathostomin species. Oligoprobes were designed for identification of Cylicocyclus ashworthi, Cylicocyclus nassatus, Cylicostephanus longibursatus, Cylicostephanus goldi and a fifth probe designed to identify all members of this tribe. PCR amplification of IGS DNA from 16 ...

In several countries, surveillance of insect vectors is accomplished with automatic traps. This study addressed the performance of Mosquito Magnet® Independence (MMI) in comparison with those of CDC with CO2 and lactic acid (CDC-A) and CDC light trap (CDC-LT). The collection sites were in a rural region located in a fragment of secondary tropical Atlantic rainforest, southeastern Brazil. Limatu...

A study was conducted during the summer of 2009 (from July to September) to characterize mosquito communities among different habitats in five historically ditched tidal salt marshes and three adjacent wooded areas in the E.A. Vaughn Wetland Management Area on the Maryland Delmarva Peninsula, USA. Study marshes are characteristic of Atlantic coastal salt marshes that had undergone grid ditching...