Overwintering strategies of mosquitoes (Diptera:Culicidae) on warmer islands may predict impact of global warming on Kyushu, Japan.

Mosquito overwintering was studied on Tanegashima and Yakushima, islands south of Kyushu, to predict the impact of global warming on northern Kyushu where mosquitoes overwinter in diapause. On Tanegashima and Yakushima, the following 5 types of overwintering strategies were recognized: (1) continued reproduction without diapause (2 Anopheles spp., 2 Culex spp., 2 Aedes spp.); (2) diapausing female adults but a few adults from late-developing larvae may emerge in midwinter (2 Anopheles spp. and 9 culex spp.); (3) diapausing eggs but a few adults may emerge in midwinter (5 Aedes spp.); (4) diapausing larvae (1 Orthopodomyia sp., 1 Aedes sp., 1 Armigeres sp., 1 Uranotaenia sp., 1 Toxorhynchites sp.); and (5) diapausing eggs and larvae (1 Tripteroides sp.). Few females of 4 aedine species were collected while seeking hosts in midwinter, but neither larvae nor adults of Culex tritaeniorhynchus Giles or southern house mosquito, Culex quinquefasciatus Say, were found during this survey. The 5 degrees C increase in the midwinter mean temperature in northern Kyushu probably will not produce serious mosquito problems directly, but the proximity of the subtropical regions may have significant effects through dispersal of adult mosquitoes.