Mosquito populations could surge in the future as temperatures rise due to climate change**, according to new research**. That's the conclusion of the new study. Coverage time: December 20, 2023 (Health Day News)
Rising temperatures will make it more difficult for predators who feed on mosquitoes to effectively control mosquito populations, researchers say.
This is because the warmer weather increases the growth rate of the larvae, which causes the dragonflies to have a shorter window to hunt them.
Researchers recently reported in the journal Ecology that the result is that the number of viable adult mosquito larvae may nearly double.
We're likely to see a huge increase in the number of bugs that everyone dislikes the most," lead researcher Andrew Davidson said in a Virginia Commonwealth University press release. Davidson conducts his research through a doctoral program at the Center for Comprehensive Life Sciences Education in Richmond.
To conduct the study, researchers studied mosquitoes in a rocky pool on the banks of the Bailey Island River on the banks of the James River in Richmond.
They found that warmer waters contained more larvae, even in the presence of predators such as dragonflies.
While the mosquito larvae we are studying here are pond mosquitoes from North America, it is likely that these findings are also applicable to mosquito species, which do act as pathogens such as Western encephalitis and even Zika virus," D**Idson said.
More information. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more information on vector-borne diseases.
*: Virginia Commonwealth University press release, December 18, 2023.
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