title: Anthropogenic impacts on mosquito populations in North America over the past century.
abstract: The recent emergence and spread of vector-borne viruses including Zika, chikungunya and dengue has raised concerns that climate change may cause mosquito vectors of these diseases to expand into more temperate regions. However, the long-term impact of other anthropogenic factors on mosquito abundance and distributions is less studied. Here, we show that anthropogenic chemical use (DDT; dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) and increasing urbanization were the strongest drivers of changes in mosquito populations over the last eight decades in areas on both coasts of North America. Mosquito populations have increased as much as tenfold, and mosquito communities have become two- to fourfold richer over the last five decades. These increases are correlated with the decay in residual environmental DDT concentrations and growing human populations, but not with temperature. These results illustrate the far-reaching impacts of multiple anthropogenic disturbances on animal communities and suggest that interactions between land use and chemical use may have unforeseen consequences on ecosystems.
authors.affiliation: Suffolk County Vector Control, 335 Yaphank Avenue, Yaphank, New York 11980, USA.|Center for Vector Biology, Rutgers University, 180 Jones Avenue, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901, USA.
authors.forename: Ilia
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Rochlin
authors.affiliation: Center for Vector Biology, Rutgers University, 180 Jones Avenue, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901, USA.|Salt Lake City Mosquito Abatement District, 2020 North Redwood Road, Salt Lake City, Utah 84116, USA.
authors.forename: Ary
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Faraji
authors.affiliation: Suffolk County Vector Control, 335 Yaphank Avenue, Yaphank, New York 11980, USA.
authors.forename: Dominick V
authors.initials: DV
authors.lastname: Ninivaggi
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis, 1 Shields Avenue, Davis, California 95616, USA.
authors.forename: Christopher M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Barker
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 1156 High Street, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California 95064, USA.
authors.forename: A Marm
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Kilpatrick
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D009033:Culicidae / Q000502:physiology*; D003634:DDT / Q000633:toxicity; D005843:Geography; D006802:Human Activities; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009656:North America; D011157:Population Dynamics; D013045:Species Specificity; D013696:Temperature; D013997:Time Factors; D058067:Wavelet Analysis
chemical_list: D003634:DDT