Disease-carrying mosquitoes rare in undisturbed tropical forests

"We found that fewer mosquito species known to carry

a

disease-causing pathogens live in forested areas compared to disturbed ones," said Jose Loaiza staff scientist at the Panamanian Institute of Scientific Research and High Technology Services (INDICASAT) and Research Associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama. "Mosquito species from altered forest sites are more likely to transmit disease than mosquitoes native to an area of mature tropical forest."

Loaiza's team used DNA barcoding to identify almost 8,000 mosquito larvae representing more than 50 species from water standing in natural or artificial containers or ground water at 245 sites where tropical lowland forest was highly disturbed (Las Pavas on the west bank of the Panama Canal), somewhat disturbed (Achiote, on the east bank of the canal) and undisturbed (at the Smithsonian's research station on Barro Colorado Island).

The French attempt to build the Panama Canal failed because no one knew how malaria and yellow fever spread. The Cuban discovery that mosquitoes carried disease-causing agents made it possible for the U.S. to complete the interoceanic canal in 1914.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-08-disease-carrying-mosquitoes-rare-undisturbed-tropical.html#jCp