Mosquito control manages mosquito populations to reduce damage to their human, economic, and pleasure health. Mosquito control is a vital public health practice worldwide and especially in the tropics because mosquitoes spread many diseases, such as malaria and the Zika virus.
Mosquito control operations are targeted against three different problems:
- Mosquito bully disrupts people around the house or in parks and recreation areas;
- Economically important mosquitoes reduce the value of real estate, negatively impact tourism and related business interests, or negatively impact farms or poultry production;
- Public health is the focus when mosquitoes are vectors, or transmitters, infectious diseases.
Mosquito-borne disease organisms include West Nile virus, Saint Louis viral encephalitis, Eastern equine encephalomyelitis virus, Everglades virus, Highlands J virus, La Crosse Encephalitis virus in the United States; dengue fever, yellow fever, Ilheus virus, malaria, Zika virus and filariasis in the tropics of America; Rift Valley Fever, Wuchereria bancrofti , Japanese Encephalitis, chikungunya and filariasis in Africa and Asia; and Murray Valley encephalitis in Australia.
Depending on the situation, source reduction, biocontrol, larviciding, or adulticiding can be used to manage mosquito populations. These techniques are carried out using habitat modification, pesticides, biological control agents, and traps. The advantage of non-toxic control methods is that they can be used in Conservation Areas.
Video Mosquito control
Monitor mosquito populations
The population of adult mosquitoes can be monitored by calculating landing levels, or by mechanical traps. For landing level counts, the inspector visits a number of sites set daily, counting the number of adult female mosquitoes that land on body parts, such as arms or both legs, within specified time intervals. The mechanical trap uses a fan to blow an adult mosquito into a collection of bags that are brought back to the laboratory for a catch analysis. Mechanical traps use visual cues (light, black/white contrast) or chemical atractions typically released by host mosquitoes (eg, carbon dioxide, ammonia, lactic acid, octenaol) to attract adult female mosquitoes. These gestures are often used in combination.
Monitoring of larval mosquito populations involves collecting larvae from puddles with a bucket or turkey. Habitat, estimated total number of larvae and pupa, and species recorded for each collection. Alternative methods work by providing an artificial breeding ground (ovitraps) and collecting and counting developing larvae at fixed intervals.
Maps Mosquito control
Reduced source
Because many mosquitoes breed in puddles, reducing the source can be as simple as emptying water from containers around the house. This is something that can be resolved by homeowners. We can eliminate the mosquito breeding place at home by removing unused plastic pools, scrap tires, or buckets; by cleaning up clogged gutters and fixing leaks around the faucet; regularly (at most every 4 days) replacing water in a bird bath; and by filling or draining puddles, swampy areas, and tree stumps. Eliminating such mosquito breeding areas can be a very effective and permanent way to reduce mosquito populations without the use of insecticides. However, this may not be possible in some parts of the developing world where water can not be easily replaced due to irregular water supply.
The management of open swamp (OWMM) involves the use of shallow channels, to create a network of waterways in the swamps and to connect swamps to ponds or canals. The ditch network drains mosquito habitat and allows fish that will eat mosquito larvae. This reduces the need for other control methods such as pesticides. Only giving predators access to mosquito larvae can cause long-term mosquito control. The management of open water swamps is used on the east and west coasts of the United States.
Rotational impoundment management (RIM) involves the use of large pumps and culverts with gates to control the level of water in a confiscated swamp. RIM allows mosquito control to occur while still allowing the swamp to function in a state as close as possible to its natural state. Water is pumped into swamps in late spring and summer to prevent the female mosquito from laying its eggs on the ground. The swamp is allowed to flow in autumn, winter, and early spring. The gates in the culverts are used to permit fish, crustaceans, and other swamp organisms to enter and exit the swamp. RIM enables the purpose of mosquito control to be met while at the same time reducing the need for pesticide use in swamps. Rotational retaining management is used for most on the east coast of Florida.
Biocontrol
Biological control or "biocontrol" is the use of natural enemies to manage mosquito populations. There are several types of biological controls including the direct introduction of parasites, pathogens and predators to attack mosquitoes. Effective biocontrol agents include predatory fish that eat mosquito larvae such as mosquitofish ( Gambusia affinis ) and some cyprinids (carps and minnows) and killifish. Tilapia also consume mosquito larvae. The direct introduction of tilapia and mosquitofish into ecosystems around the world has disastrous consequences. However, utilizing an aquaponic controlled system provides mosquito control without adverse effects on the ecosystem.
Other predators include the naiad dragonflies, which consume mosquito larvae in captive waters, adult dragonflies, which feed on adult mosquitoes and some species of lizards and gecko. Biocontrol agents that have lower success rates include mosquito predators Toxorhynchites and crustaceans predators - Mesocyclops copepods, nematodes and fungi. Predators such as birds, bats, lizards and frogs, have been used, but their effectiveness is only anecdotal.
Like all animals, mosquitoes can also get sick. Invertebrate pathologists study the disease in the hope that some of them can be exploited for the management of mosquitoes. Microbial pathogens of mosquitoes include viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes and microsporidia.
Dead spores of soil bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis , especially Bt israelensis (BTI) interferes with the digestive system of larvae. These can be dispersed by hand or dropped by helicopter over a large area. BTI loses effectiveness after larvae turn into cocoons, as they stop eating.
Two species of fungus can kill adult mosquitoes: Metarhizium anisopliae and Beauveria bassiana .
Integrated pest management (IPM) is the use of the most environmentally friendly method or combination of methods to control pest populations. The common mosquito control program using IPM conducted the first survey, to determine species composition, relative abundance and seasonal distribution of adult and larval mosquitoes, and only then was the established control strategy.
Experimental biocontrol method
Introducing a large number of sterile men is another approach to reduce the number of mosquitoes.
Another control approach under investigation for Aedes aegypti uses a genetically modified strain to require tetracycline antibiotics to develop beyond the larval stage. Modified males usually develop in the nursery while they are supplied with these chemicals and can be released into the wild. However, their descendants will subsequently lack tetracycline in the wild and never mature. Field trials were conducted in the Cayman Islands, Malaysia and Brazil to control mosquitoes that cause dengue fever. In April 2014, Brazil's National Technical Commission for Biosecurity approved the commercial release of modified mosquitoes. The FDA is the principal institution for regulating genetically modified mosquitoes in the United States. Reviews by the Veterinary Center of genetically engineered proteins to increase dairy cows milk output require nine years. In the 1990s, it began nearly 20 years of reviewing genetically modified Atlantic salmon approved in 2015.
In 2014 research is reported into other genetic methods including cytoplasmic mismatch, chromosomal translocation, sex distortion and gene replacement. Although a few years away from the field trial stage, if successful this other method has the potential to become cheaper and to eradicate Aedes aegypti mosquitoes more efficiently.
Trap Trap
This is a process for achieving sustainable mosquito control in an environmentally sound manner by providing artificial breeding grounds using ordinary household appliances and destroying larvae in harmless natural ways such as dumping them in dry places or feeding them to fish-eating larvae such as > Gambusia affinis , or strangle it by spreading thin plastic sheets over the water to block atmospheric air. Shifting water with larvae to other vessels and pouring a few drops of kerosene or insecticide/larvicide in it is another option to kill explorers, but is not favored because of its environmental impact . Most ornamental fish eat mosquito larvae.
Adult traps
In some experiments, researchers used a mosquito trap. This process allows both opportunities to determine which mosquitoes are affected, and provides the group to be released again with genetic modifications that produce the OX513A variant to reduce reproduction. Adult mosquitoes are drawn in the trap where they die from dehydration.
Oil drops
Oil drops or oil drops are common and non-toxic antimosquito sizes. A thin layer of oil over water prevents mosquito breeding in two ways: mosquito larvae in the water can not penetrate the oil film with their breathing tubes, so it sinks and dies; also adult mosquitoes do not lay eggs on oiled water.
Larviciding
The control of larvae can be achieved through the use of contact toxins, growth regulators, surface coatings, stomach toxins (including bacterial agents), and biological agents such as fungi, nematodes, copepods and fish. The chemicals commonly used in the United States are methoprene, considered to be slightly toxic to larger animals, which mimic and disrupt natural growth hormone in mosquito larvae, preventing progression. Methoprene is often distributed in the form of time-release briquettes in the breeding areas.
It is believed by some researchers that the larvae of Anopheles gambiae (a vital vector of malaria) can survive for several days in wet mud, and that care should therefore include mud and soil a few feet from a puddle.
Adulticiding
Adult mosquito control is the most well-known aspect of mosquito control in most societies. This is done by ground-based applications or through residual chemical insecticide air applications such as Duet. Generally modern mosquito control programs in developed countries use low-volume insecticide applications, although some programs still use thermal fogging. In addition to fogging there are several other insect repellent for indoors and outdoors.
To control adult mosquitoes in India, van fogging machines and hand fogging machines are used.
Use of DDT
DDT was previously used worldwide for the control of large mosquitoes, but is now banned in most developed countries.
Controversially, DDT remains common in many developing countries (14 countries reported using it in 2009), claiming that public health costs to switch to other control methods would outweigh the damage caused by DDT use. Sometimes approved for use only on certain circumstances, limited where the most effective, such as applications to the wall.
The role of DDT in the fight against mosquitoes has been a major controversy. Although DDT has been shown to affect biodiversity and lead to thinning of eggshells in birds such as bald eagles, some say that DDT is the most effective weapon in the fight against mosquitoes, and hence malaria. While some of these disagreements are based on differences in the extent to which disease control is assessed as opposed to biodiversity values, there is also disagreement among experts about the costs and benefits of using DDT.
Nonetheless, DDT-resistant mosquitoes have begun to increase in number, especially in the tropics due to mutations, reducing the effectiveness of these chemicals; these mutations may rapidly spread to large areas if the pesticide is applied indiscriminately (Chevillon et al. 1999). In areas where DDT resistance is found, malathion, propoxur or lindane are used.
Mosquito trap
The traditional approach to controlling mosquito populations is the use of Lethal ovitraps, which provide breeding grounds for mosquitoes to spawn. These traps usually contain chemicals in traps that are used to kill adult mosquitoes and/or larvae in traps. Research has shown that with quite a number of these traps, the Aedes mosquito population can be controlled. The latest approach is automatic shutdown ovitrap, which works like a traditional ovitrap but it automates all the steps necessary to provide a breeding ground and to destroy the growing larvae.
In 2016, researchers from Laurentian University released a design for a low cost trap called Ovillanta consisting of tied up water in the discarded rubber tire section. At certain intervals, water flows through the filter to remove the eggs and the deposited larvae. Water, which then contains the 'oviposition' pheromones that are stored during laying, is reused to attract more mosquitoes. Two studies have shown that this type of trap can attract about seven times as many mosquito eggs as conventional ovitrap.
Some new mosquito traps or famous mosquito attractant emit a clump of carbon dioxide along with other mosquito attractants such as sweet scent, lactic acid, octenol, warmth, moisture and sound. By mimicking the scent and output of mammals, the trap draws the female mosquitoes towards him, where they are usually sucked into a net or holder by the electric fan in which they are collected. According to the American Mosquito Control Association, traps will kill some mosquitoes, but their effectiveness in some cases will depend on a number of factors such as the size and species of the mosquito population and the type and location of breeding habitats. They are useful in the study of specimen collection to determine the type of mosquito that is prevalent in an area but is usually too inefficient to be useful in reducing mosquito populations.
Proposal to eradicate mosquitoes
Some biologists have proposed the extinction of certain species of deliberate mosquitoes. Biologist Olivia Judson has advocated the "speculation" of thirty species of mosquitoes by introducing genetic elements that can incorporate themselves into other important genes, to create a recessive "knockout gene". He said that the Anopheles mosquito (which spread malaria) and the Aedes mosquito (which spread dengue fever, yellow fever, elephant legs, zikis, and other diseases) represented only 30 3,500 species of mosquitoes; Eradicating this will save at least one million human lives per year, at the cost of reducing the genetic diversity of the Culicidae family by only 1%. He further argues that since the species become extinct "all the time" the loss of some more will not destroy the ecosystem: "We are not left with empty land every time a species is lost.Removing one species sometimes causes a shift in the population of another species - but different needs does not mean worse. "In addition, anti-malaria and mosquito control programs offer little realistic expectations for the 300 million people in developing countries that will be infected with acute illness this year. Although trials are under way, he writes that if they fail: "We must consider a big blow."
Biologist E. O. Wilson recommends blackouts of several species of mosquitoes, including the Anopheles gambiae malaria vector. Wilson stated, "I am talking about a small number of species that have evolved along with us and prey on humans, so it is certainly acceptable to remove them. I believe that is just common sense."
The ecologist of insects, Steven Juliano argues that "it is difficult to see what would be a disappearance, except for additional damage". Entomologist Joe Conlon stated that "If we eradicate them tomorrow, the ecosystems where they are active will falter and then move on. Something better or worse will take over."
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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