Composition of mosquito species in a Mediterranean wetland: Modeling the effects of interactions and abiotic parameters

Vortrag

Teil der Sitzung

[FS-280] Biogeography in the anthropocene

Sitzungstermin

Mittwoch (20. September 2023), 14:30–16:00

Sitzungsraum

SH 3.104

Autor*innen

Ridwan Shittu (Universität Bayreuth)

Oliver Chinonso Mbaoma (Universität Bayreuth)

Stephanie Margarete Thomas

David Roiz (Servicio de Control de Mosquitos de la Diputación de Huelva)

Santiago Ruiz

Jordi Figuerola (Estación Biológica de Doñana (CSIC))

Carl Beierkuhnlein (Universität Bayreuth)

Kurzbeschreibung

We used joint species distribution modeling to study the factors affecting mosquito species in Doñana National Park, which is close to where West Nile virus outbreaks have occurred. The study found that abiotic factors significantly impacted mosquito abundance and estimated species-to-species association as a proxy for potential biotic interactions among the mosquito species.

Schlagwörter

biotic interactions, joint species distribution modeling, mosquito community, mosquito control, mosquito-borne diseases.

Abstract

Recent outbreaks of West Nile virus have been reported from southern Spain, a region with important wetland habitats for migratory birds. Here, we disentangle the role of biotic interactions and abiotic parameters affecting the community composition of the mosquito species in the Doñana National Park, Spain.

We applied Joint Species Distribution Models (JSDM), using the Hierarchical Modeling of Species Communities (HMSC) approach to simultaneously model the effect of habitat types, normalized difference vegetation index, hydroperiod, distance to rivers, land-surface temperature, and the abundance of seven mosquito species. We created three models with varied parameters and evaluated the effect of the listed abiotic parameters and species-to-species associations, which serve as proxies for species interactions.

Our models estimated the species-specific response of the mosquito community to abiotic parameters.

The result identified a positive association within the Culex community with potential biotic interactions. However, Ochlerotatus caspius, Ochlerotatus detritus, and Anopheles atroparvus have no statistically supported association with each other and with the Culex species after accounting for the effect of abiotic parameters.

The JSDM approach supports the identification of potential biotic interactions and allows the spatial projection of the abundance of each mosquito species, an important parameter for epidemiological models.