Yale School of Public Health and Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, New Haven, CT, USA.
Ecohealth. 2011 Sep;8(3):365-75. doi: 10.1007/s10393-011-0708-8. Epub 2011 Oct 12.
Aedes aegypti is implicated in dengue transmission in tropical and subtropical urban areas around the world. Ae. aegypti populations are controlled through integrative vector management. However, the efficacy of vector control may be undermined by the presence of alternative, competent species. In Puerto Rico, a native mosquito, Ae. mediovittatus, is a competent dengue vector in laboratory settings and spatially overlaps with Ae. aegypti. It has been proposed that Ae. mediovittatus may act as a dengue reservoir during inter-epidemic periods, perpetuating endemic dengue transmission in rural Puerto Rico. Dengue transmission dynamics may therefore be influenced by the spatial overlap of Ae. mediovittatus, Ae. aegypti, dengue viruses, and humans. We take a landscape epidemiology approach to examine the association between landscape composition and configuration and the distribution of each of these Aedes species and their co-occurrence. We used remotely sensed imagery from a newly launched satellite to map landscape features at very high spatial resolution. We found that the distribution of Ae. aegypti is positively predicted by urban density and by the number of tree patches, Ae. mediovittatus is positively predicted by the number of tree patches, but negatively predicted by large contiguous urban areas, and both species are predicted by urban density and the number of tree patches. This analysis provides evidence that landscape composition and configuration is a surrogate for mosquito community composition, and suggests that mapping landscape structure can be used to inform vector control efforts as well as to inform urban planning.
埃及伊蚊在全球热带和亚热带城市地区传播登革热。通过综合的病媒管理来控制埃及伊蚊种群。然而，替代的、有能力的物种的存在可能会破坏病媒控制的效果。在波多黎各，一种本地蚊子，白纹伊蚊，在实验室环境中是一种有能力的登革热媒介，并且与埃及伊蚊在空间上重叠。有人提出，白纹伊蚊可能在流行间歇期充当登革热的储主，使波多黎各农村的地方性登革热传播持续下去。因此，登革热传播动态可能会受到白纹伊蚊、埃及伊蚊、登革热病毒和人类之间空间重叠的影响。我们采用景观流行病学方法来研究景观组成和结构与这些伊蚊物种及其共存的分布之间的关系。我们使用新发射的卫星的遥感图像来以非常高的空间分辨率绘制景观特征。我们发现，埃及伊蚊的分布与城市密度和树木斑块数量呈正相关，白纹伊蚊的分布与树木斑块数量呈正相关，但与大的连续城市区域呈负相关，两种物种都与城市密度和树木斑块数量呈正相关。这项分析提供了证据，表明景观组成和结构是蚊子群落组成的替代指标，并表明绘制景观结构可以用于指导病媒控制工作，以及城市规划。
