University of FloridaFlorida Agricultural Experiment Station

Research Spotlight

Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory: Invasion Biology of Aedes albopictus: The Asian Tiger Mosquito, Aedes albopictus, first discovered in Florida at a scrap tire dump in Jacksonville in 1986, subsequently spread rapidly to become the most common daytime pest mosquito biting people in the State. This same invasive species has been recently incriminated as a transmitter of LaCrosse encephalitis virus to people elsewhere in the southern USA, and during the West Nile epidemic of 2002, 11 states and the District of Columbia reported the detection of this virus in field-collected A. albopictus. More recently, invasive A. albopictus has been recognized as the epidemic vector of chikungunya virus in Italy and in African island nations of the Indian Ocean.

FMEL is the home base of an NIH-funded research program, led by Dr. Phil Lounibos, on A. albopictus invasions, conducted in collaboration with researchers from Illinois State University and the Oswaldo Cruz Institute in Brazil. Current research activities include:

  • Experimental tests of hypotheses about the roles of interspecific competition with resident species (such as Aedes aegypti, the Yellow Fever Mosquito) in determining invasion success.
  • Examination of the effects of larval competition and rearing temperature on vector competence of A. albopictus and A. aegypti for dengue, chikungunya and other arboviruses.
  • Experiments to elucidate the impact of larval predation on A. albopictus in aquatic container communities.
  • Analyses of habitat selection by A. albopictus with GIS and experiments to define the influence of adult bloodmeal and sugar consumption.

This project has been the major focus of research since 1999, when FMEL began to examine the ecology and genetics of establishments of this species in the Americas. Research in Brazil is supported by a new (2008-2010) FIRCA grant from NIH's Fogarty International Center to investigate the ecology of invasive vectors in the context of endemic dengue transmission.

For more information about this research, contact Dr. Lounibos at lounibos@ufl.edu, or visit the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory Web site http://fmel.ifas.ufl.edu/.

The photo shows students from the Oswaldo Cruz Institute collecting adult mosquitoes indoors, as part of the research relating dengue transmission in Rio de Janeiro to the intensity of larval competition.

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