Publication Date:
2022-05-26
Description:
© The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Krol, L., Gorsich, E. E., Hunting, E. R., Govender, D., van Bodegom, P. M., & Schrama, M. Eutrophication governs predator-prey interactions and temperature effects in Aedes aegypti populations. Parasites & Vectors, 12(1), (2019):179, doi:10.1186/s13071-019-3431-x.
Description:
Background
Mosquito population dynamics are driven by large-scale (e.g. climatological) and small-scale (e.g. ecological) factors. While these factors are known to independently influence mosquito populations, it remains uncertain how drivers that simultaneously operate under natural conditions interact to influence mosquito populations. We, therefore, developed a well-controlled outdoor experiment to assess the interactive effects of two ecological drivers, predation and nutrient availability, on mosquito life history traits under multiple temperature regimes.
Methods
We conducted a temperature-controlled mesocosm experiment in Kruger National Park, South Africa, with the yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti. We investigated how larval survival, emergence and development rates were impacted by the presence of a locally-common invertebrate predator (backswimmers Anisops varia Fieber (Notonectidae: Hemiptera), nutrient availability (oligotrophic vs eutrophic, reflecting field conditions), water temperature, and interactions between each driver.
Results
We observed that the effects of predation and temperature both depended on eutrophication. Predation caused lower adult emergence in oligotrophic conditions but higher emergence under eutrophic conditions. Higher temperatures caused faster larval development rates in eutrophic but not oligotrophic conditions.
Conclusions
Our study shows that ecological bottom-up and top-down drivers strongly and interactively govern mosquito life history traits for Ae. aegypti populations. Specifically, we show that eutrophication can inversely affect predator–prey interactions and mediate the effect of temperature on mosquito survival and development rates. Hence, our results suggest that nutrient pollution can overrule biological constraints on natural mosquito populations and highlights the importance of studying multiple factors.
Description:
This study was supported by the Gratama Fund, Grant Number 2016.08, which was awarded to MS, supported by the Uyttenboogaart-Eliasen foundation for comparative entomology, Grant No. SUB.2016.12.08 and the RCN-IDEAS grant which was awarded to EEG. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Keywords:
Ecological drivers
;
Vector-borne
;
Anthropogenic pressures
;
Interaction effects
;
Temperature
;
Biodiversity decline
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Article
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