In target areas where human mosquito-borne diseases are diagnosed, the inclusion of the pre-adult mosquito aquatic niches parameters will improve the integrated mosquito control program.

• Published in: PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
• Main Authors: Swapan Kumar Ghosh, Dipanjan Podder, Atanu Kumar Panja, Sabyasachi Mukherjee
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2020
• Subjects: Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine; RC955-962; Public aspects of medicine; RA1-1270; Arctic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0008605; https://doaj.org/article/2b74491c1e0b49c6b43ad7ca452c2d69

In human communities inhabiting areas-such as West Bengal- India-where perpetuate the pre-imago & adult developmental stages of mosquitoes; many infectious diseases are still diagnosed such as Dengue, Malaria and Acute Encephalitis Syndrome. The control of the aquatic developmental stages is one of the easiest way to prevent the emergence of adults-the blood feeding adult females being thus prevented to sample their blood meal and to lay their eggs in the aquatic milieu where develop the aquatic pre-imaginal developmental stages. Moreover, reducing the adult population size also the probability of for the blood feeding adult female mosquitoes to act as hosts and vectors of the arboviruses such as dengue virus & Japanese encephalitis virus as well as of Plasmodium. Several environmental factors including water quality parameters are responsible for the selection of oviposition sites by the female mosquitoes. In our study, larval densities of three important mosquitoes (Aedes/A. albopictus, Anopheles/An. stephensi and Culex/C. vishnui) were measured and water qualities of their habitat i.e. pH, Specific Conductance, Dissolved Oxygen, Chemical Oxygen Demand, Total alkalinity (Talk), Hardness, Nitrate nitrogen and Ammonia nitrogen were analyzed in 2017 and 2018 in many districts of West Bengal where humans beings are suffering from arboviruses and /or malaria. Whereas we have found positive correlation of density of C. vishnui and A. albopictus with the water factors except Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) and Talk, for An. stephensi all these factors except pH, COD and Talk have positive correlation. Hardness of the water shows positive correlation with the density of An. stephensi and C. vishnui but negative correlation with density of A. albopictus. Contour plot analysis demonstrates that occurrence of each mosquito species lies in between specific range of water factors. Inter- correlation analysis revealed that mosquitoes were negatively correlated with each other. A positive correlation of the water ...