Differences in mosquito occurrence between the disaster areas of the Kumamoto earthquakes and the Great East Japan earthquake

Abstract

We investigated the occurrence of mosquitoes in both disaster areas of the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami and the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake in the summers after the disasters respectively. In the former area, Culex pipiens group was the most common taxa in adult stage (157.01 individuals per trap per day; 82.55%). In larval stage, Cx. pipiens gr., Cx. tritaeniorhynchus and Anopheles sinensis were collected. While in the latter area, Aedes albopictus (19.29; 62.21%), Cx. pipiens gr. (5.23; 16.87%) and Armigeres subalbatus (4.34; 14.0%) were common in adult catch. The larvae of the three species were also commonly collected in the larval sampling. We compared the mosquito's occurrence between the two areas to find that abundance and species composition were completely different. In the 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami area, a great number of comparatively large sized water bodies were made by the tsunami, and they became good habitats for Cx. pipiens gr. In contrast in the Kumamoto earthquake area, there were collapsed houses and a large number of small artificial containers left there as well as the tarpaulins used to cover damaged property, all of which served as good breeding sites for Ae. albopictus.