A four-year collaboration between the Pontchartrain Conservancy (PC) and St. Tammany Mosquito Abatement (STPMAD) on an EPA funded project has yielded importantfindings for our understanding of sewage-associated mosquitoes. The project area, Ponchitolawa Creek Watershed, drains approximately 9,441 acres in St. Tammany Parish and is a tributary of the Lower Tchefuncte River, which flows into Lake…
Many mosquitoes exploit newly wetted and/or ephemeral habitats that are prone to dry up. This is likely due to the lack of competition from other organisms with which they compete for nutrients. Alternatively, ephemeral habitats offer a lower risk of predation from natural enemies that may have not had time to invade these habitats. In…
Temperature and nutrients are the fuel for larval mosquito development. As ectotherms—relying upon ambient temperatures—the mosquito life cycle is dominated by temperature. Though the role of ambient temperature in mosquito development has likely been known to the scientific community for a half century or more, it was only recently that this knowledge led to a…
Larval Mosquito Control The temperature-dependent operations to kill larval mosquitoes are the frontline of our war on the southern house mosquito. Since larval and pupal mosquitoes can swim but not fly, eliminating mosquitoes from aquatic habitats is easier to target, less expensive, and more environmentally sensitive than killing adult mosquitoes. Also, a dead immature mosquito…
All mosquito control operations in St. Tammany Parish are evidence-based. This means that each mission is driven by inspection, trap, or complaint data. Efficient service to reduce biting rates of adult mosquitoes is reliant on the sensitive detection of where and when mosquitoes and the pathogens they transmit require treatment. In 2015, we began experimenting…
The southern house mosquito doesn’t distinguish one source of sewage-polluted habitat from another. Wherever organically enriched water remains for more than seven days it could be producing vector mosquitoes. Sewage treatment facilities including those that treat large municipalities can be sources of southern house mosquito production. Though up to two-thirds of St. Tammany Parish relies…
The Western Mosquitofish, Gambusia affinis, is the most widely distributed fish in the world and likely the single biggest mosquito predator. Undoubtedly, this diminutive fish, no larger than a few inches, has saved more human and animal lives from mosquito-transmitted diseases than any other organism — doctors included. For this reason, the mosquitofish is humanity’s…
Where mosquito larvae are found is not just a function of where their predators are not. Female mosquitoes selectively choose habitats to promote survivorship of their offspring. To better understand the habitat choices of the southern house mosquito, STPMAD has performed egg-laying choice experiments with 5-gallon buckets. By counting egg rafts deposited overnight in various…
Under the guidance of Dr. Don Yee in collaboration with STPMAD, Catherine Dean Bermond, a University of Southern Mississippi graduate student is completing her Masters thesis on the sewage influence on the southern house mosquito life-history traits (development time and body size). As well, Ms. Bermond is investigating carbon (C) to nitrogen (N) ratios in…
Mosquito Abatement is fortunate that the National Weather Service (NWS) and Lower Mississippi River Forecast Center office is immediately next door. This proximity has led to a valuable collaboration with meteorologists Jared Klein and David Schlotzhauer. Though we’ve known that the abundance of southern house mosquitoes was associated with drought conditions, precipitation data provided by…
