Finding Ways to Keep Mosquitoes at Bay

Editor’s Note:This is a guest post by艾米丽·里德（Emily Reed）, a Ph.D. candidate in NC State’s Department of Biological Sciences. This post is part of a series highlighting ways that NC State is helping us understand, mitigate and prepare for the气候变化的影响.

My work is focused on finding ways to limit the extent to which people come into contact with mosquitoes, a goal that most people in North Carolina probably think is worth pursuing.

I feel comfortable saying that because I have lived in North Carolina all my life. First growing up in the woods west of Chapel Hill, then in the mountains as an undergraduate, before returning to the Piedmont to pursue a Ph.D. in biology at NC State. I feel some pride in my familiarity with the state and its many communities, traditions and landscapes.

飓风和蚊子研究并没有看起来像看起来很遥远的关系。

当我想到状态的气候变化时，想到的第一件事是飓风。我含糊地记得在飓风期间与我怀孕的妈妈一起在1996年与我怀孕的妈妈一起撤退到格林斯伯勒，而我父亲则留在家里看动物和房屋。我的叔叔是被暴风雨杀死的26人之一。我记得飓风弗洛伊德（Floyd）更清楚，当我的家人在楼下的浴室里避开了灯光和收音机的庇护所，听着一遍又一遍地的熟悉的天气紧急警报。

Both anecdotally and从科学上讲, hurricane frequency and intensity has increased in North Carolina. This shift can be attributed to climate change, and many researchers at NC State are studying the relationship between climate and hurricanes and the consequent environmental and economic effects. I am not one of them. My scientific pursuits are on a much smaller scale: I study mosquitoes.

飓风和蚊子研究并没有看起来像看起来很遥远的关系。气候变化对每种情况的影响相当相似：全球变暖意味着每年更长的时间。一些蚊子，喜欢Psorophora ciliata, known as the “gallinipper” in the Southeast, have eggs that hatch during floods, leading to a direct increase in their abundance following hurricanes. Other species, such asAedes albopictus, the Asian tiger mosquito and the focus of my research, lay their eggs in small natural and artificial containers, such as the flowerpots, water bowls, tarps, and other refuse we keep in our backyards. When rain fills these items, the eggs hatch and we become much more aware of how pesky these critters are.

虽然北卡罗莱纳州人目前在天气变冷时从叮咬中得到缓刑，但随着温暖，湿润的天气使蚊子能够生存并繁殖到今年晚些时候，此窗户正在缩短。我预测我们的蚊子季节最终将与佛罗里达州的季节相同：一年365天。

Climate change and more mosquitoes also bring sinister public-health risks.

Mosquito bites can be quite irritating to many – I can personally attest to this, since I counted a total of over 400 bites myself during my field season in 2018. But climate change and more mosquitoes also bring sinister public-health risks. Mosquito-borne diseases also thrive in warmer weather, and diseases that are currently restricted to the tropics, such as dengue fever and Zika virus, have the potential to spread.

在北卡罗来纳州发现的大约60种蚊子中，只有少数是疾病的媒介。这里的蚊子很大程度上是一个令人讨厌的滋扰，尽管有气候变化，它们仍将保持这种状态。历史表明，可以使用适当的预防和适应性措施将蚊子传播的疾病遏制，甚至可以从区域中消除。

例如，疟疾在1950年代从美国释放在增加使用窗户屏幕，改善排水和大量杀虫剂之后。通过改进的技术，我们可以通过管理更智能而不是更难的方式来进一步减轻疾病的风险和化学控制方法的生态影响。

这是我的研究进来的地方。

I look at how landscape features and climate influence the way tiger mosquitoes disperse across Wake County. I use a combination of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and genomic tools to look at patterns of genetic relatedness between individuals – essentially, “23&Me” for mosquitoes. I can then identify corridors and barriers of dispersal and areas that are sources for mosquito spread. Corridors, barriers and mosquito “hotspots” are associated with landscape and climate variables. Once I know which variables are most important for mosquito dispersal, I can then use land-use and climate projections to predict future areas of mosquito occurrence and dispersal.

这项研究具有一些重要的管理意义。通过了解蚊子来源的景观，我们可以针对这些地区的控制方法。我们还可以使用这些知识来设计道路和发展，以帮助控制蚊子的散布和人类接触。根除这些害虫的不太可能是极不可能的，但是这种对它们的生态学和与环境的互动的理解得到了改进，可以帮助减轻气候变化加剧的公共卫生和滋扰风险。