Permanent Pool Mosquitoes
- Larvae complete development in permanent or semi-permanent bodies of water (>3 weeks)
- Examples include
- Lakes, reservoirs
- Ponds
- Swamps
- Marshes
- Sewage lagoons
- Develop continuously throughout season of development
- Limited flight range, usually feeding at dusk and for several hours into night
Mosquito Habitats: Permanent Pool
- Habitat
- Lakes
- Reservoirs
- Swamps
- Ditches
- Stream pools
- Marshes
- Wetlands
Mosquito-Borne Diseases
Reason mosquitos are a problem
- Their blood feeding habits
- Only females blood feed
- Bites cause stress
- Secondary infections
- Disease
- Interference with human activities (recreational and industrial development)
Mosquitoes and Disease
Three types of Mosquito transmitted diseases
- Malaria
- Arboviruses
- Yellow Fever, Dengue, SLE, WNV, EEE
- Filariasis
Mosquito Biology: Arboviruses
Mosquito-borne viruses are part of a group of pathogens known as arthropod-borne viruses, or arboviruses. Blood-sucking insects usually spread arboviruses.
Arboviruses
Require a host (usually a bird or small mammal) in which they maintain themselves in nature and a vector, such as a mosquito, to get around and infect other organisms.
Female mosquitoes may ingest a virus from an infected host and later pass the infection in their saliva when they bite another animal. Of the animals on which mosquitoes feed, birds are among the best-known hosts for arboviruses.
Wild and domestic birds are the most common vertebrate hosts for the West Nile virus, thus making the disease extremely mobile. Crows, chickens, pigeons, and hawks are among those carriers of the virus which once infected and cross state lines are bitten by a local mosquito which bites a local crow, you get the point. Movement is rapid. Quarantine is next to impossible.
Humans and other animals such as horses are dead-end hosts for most arboviruses; they do not pass the virus to others or back to mosquitoes.
