title: Potential negative impacts and low effectiveness in the use of African annual killifish in the biocontrol of aquatic mosquito larvae in temporary water bodies.
abstract: Commentary and discussion on a recent paper promoting the use of Nothobranchius guentheri, a small African annual fish from the Island of Zanzibar as a tool to control mosquito larvae in temporary bodies of freshwater throughout Africa is presented.Arguments on major points; (1) expected low success of annual fish introductions, (2) low success of mosquito control in the field, (3) ecological threats, and (4) ethical issues are detailed.Despite serious problems with mosquito-borne diseases in tropical Africa and elsewhere, we encourage responsible means of biological control of parasite vectors. We show that effectiveness of Nothobranchius translocations is low (the previous attempts failed), likelihood of effective mosquito larvae control under field condition is negligible and ecological threats from Nothobranchius translocations from within and outside the naturally occurring range are serious. We advocate against the proposed next step of the project, i.e. field trials in Tanzania.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Vertebrate Biology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Kvetná 8, 603 65 Brno, Czech Republic. reichard@ivb.cz.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Reichard
authors.forename: Brian R
authors.initials: BR
authors.lastname: Watters
authors.forename: Rudolf H
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Wildekamp
authors.forename: Rainer
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sonnenberg
authors.forename: Béla
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Nagy
authors.forename: Matej
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Polacik
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Valdesalici
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cellerino
authors.forename: Barry J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Cooper
authors.forename: Holger
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hengstler
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rosenstock
authors.forename: Ian
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Sainthouse