Identifying breeding sites for mosquitoes and mosquito-like insects
Faculty Mentor
Krisztian Magori
Presentation Type
Oral Presentation
Start Date
5-7-2024 12:00 PM
End Date
5-7-2024 12:20 PM
Location
PAT 326
Primary Discipline of Presentation
Biology
Abstract
There are over 40 different species of mosquitoes in Washington. Mosquitos can be a vector to many diseases such as West Nile, western equine encephalitis, or St. Louis encephalitis. In Washington, you can expect to find mosquitos around the summer months of June, July, and August. However, due to the short time frame and the current time in season not being ideal for finding mosquitoes we will be broadening our research scope to mosquito-like insects like midges. These are types of flies that bite people and mammals and can spread diseases like the bluetongue virus. We hypothesize that sites close to water with vegetation and pH from 5-7 will be breeding sites. We will identify breeding sites for these insects at Turnbull and surrounding lakes. At each of these sites, we will collect samples from the water using skim nets to identify what types of insects live there and breed there. We will choose what sites to collect samples from by looking at water pH, vegetation, food sources, and temperature and see which sites have the highest chance of being breeding sites for mosquitoes and mosquito-like insects. Many of these insects are seasonal and prefer certain water sources and specific conditions which is why we will be using these factors to identify breeding sites. With this information, we can alert the public to which areas have a high number of biting insects and which areas to avoid.
Recommended Citation
Briner, Hunter A.; Ballou, Braelyn J.; and Becerra, Jonathan, "Identifying breeding sites for mosquitoes and mosquito-like insects" (2024). 2024 Symposium. 8.
https://dc.ewu.edu/srcw_2024/op_2024/o3_2024/8
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Identifying breeding sites for mosquitoes and mosquito-like insects
PAT 326
There are over 40 different species of mosquitoes in Washington. Mosquitos can be a vector to many diseases such as West Nile, western equine encephalitis, or St. Louis encephalitis. In Washington, you can expect to find mosquitos around the summer months of June, July, and August. However, due to the short time frame and the current time in season not being ideal for finding mosquitoes we will be broadening our research scope to mosquito-like insects like midges. These are types of flies that bite people and mammals and can spread diseases like the bluetongue virus. We hypothesize that sites close to water with vegetation and pH from 5-7 will be breeding sites. We will identify breeding sites for these insects at Turnbull and surrounding lakes. At each of these sites, we will collect samples from the water using skim nets to identify what types of insects live there and breed there. We will choose what sites to collect samples from by looking at water pH, vegetation, food sources, and temperature and see which sites have the highest chance of being breeding sites for mosquitoes and mosquito-like insects. Many of these insects are seasonal and prefer certain water sources and specific conditions which is why we will be using these factors to identify breeding sites. With this information, we can alert the public to which areas have a high number of biting insects and which areas to avoid.
