A climate-driven mechanistic population model of Aedes albopictus with diapause

Abstract

BackgroundThe mosquito Aedes albopitus is a competent vector for the transmission of many blood-borne pathogens. An important factor that affects the mosquitoes’ development and spreading is climate, such as temperature, precipitation and photoperiod. Existing climate-driven mechanistic models overlook the seasonal pattern of diapause, referred to as the survival strategy of mosquito eggs being dormant and unable to hatch under extreme weather. With respect to diapause, several issues remain unaddressed, including identifying the time when diapause eggs are laid and hatched under different climatic conditions, demarcating the thresholds of diapause and non-diapause periods, and considering the mortality rate of diapause eggs.MethodsHere we propose a generic climate-driven mechanistic population model of Ae. albopitus applicable to most Ae. albopictus-colonized areas. The new model is an improvement over the previous work by incorporating the diapause behaviors with many modifications to the stage-specific mechanism of the mosquitoes’ life-cycle. monthly Container Index (CI) of Ae. albopitus collected in two Chinese cities, Guangzhou and Shanghai is used for model validation.ResultsThe simulation results by the proposed model is validated with entomological field data by the Pearson correlation coefficient r2 in Guangzhou (r2 = 0.84) and in Shanghai (r2 = 0.90). In addition, by consolidating the effect of diapause-related adjustments and temperature-related parameters in the model, the improvement is significant over the basic model.ConclusionsThe model highlights the importance of considering diapause in simulating Ae. albopitus population. It also corroborates that temperature and photoperiod are significant in affecting the population dynamics of the mosquito. By refining the relationship between Ae. albopitus population and climatic factors, the model serves to establish a mechanistic relation to the growth and decline of the species. Understanding this relationship in a better way will benefit studying the transmission and the spatiotemporal distribution of mosquito-borne epidemics and eventually facilitating the early warning and control of the diseases.

How does the dengue vector mosquito Aedes albopictus respond to global warming?

“…In a previous study, we established a climate-driven population model of Ae. albopictus [25]. Built upon this model, this study attempts to answer a broader question of how the mosquito responds to the temperature rise in the last four decades.…”

“…The mechanistic population model is different from the traditional statistical model, in that it formulates the successive development of the species in a bottom-up approach [25, 30]. In a mechanistic population model, an individual behavior (e.g.…”

“…albopictus with diapause (MPAD). The model was developed by Jia et al [25] to characterize the population dynamics of Ae. albopictus at different growth stages of its life cycle.…”

“…Guangzhou over 2007–2011 and Shanghai over 2009–2013), the model has achieved a relatively good fitting (i.e. correlation coefficient r  = 0.84 for Guangzhou and r  = 0.90 for Shanghai) [25]. The code of the model is provided in the reference [37].…”

“…Based on a recently proposed mechanistic population model [25], this study examines the theoretical thermal reaction of Ae. albopictus adults over four seasons of a year.…”