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Get Ready for More Mosquitos as World Heats Up

Medically reviewed by Carmen Pope, BPharm. Last updated on Dec 20, 2023.

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 20, 2023 — Warmer weather linked to climate change is likely to cause rampaging clouds of mosquitos in the future, a new study forecasts.

Rising temperatures can make it tougher for the predators that feast on mosquito larvae to effectively control mosquito populations, researchers say.

That’s because warmer weather speeds up the larvae’s development, leading to a smaller window of time for dragonflies to make a meal of them.

As a result, there could be nearly twice as many mosquito larvae that make it to adulthood, researchers recently reported in the journal Ecology.

“We might see larger populations of everyone’s least favorite bug,” said lead researcher Andrew Davidson in a Virginia Commonwealth University news release. Davidson conducted the research through the doctoral program at its Center for Integrative Life Sciences Education in Richmond.

For the study, researchers studied mosquitos in riverine rock pools at Belle Isle along the James River in Richmond.

They found that warmer pools contained more larvae, even when predators like dragonflies were present.

“While the mosquito larvae we studied here [are] the North American rock pool mosquito, these findings likely apply to species of mosquito that do act as vectors for diseases like West Nile or even Zika virus,” Davidson said.

Sources

  • Virginia Commonwealth University, news release, Dec. 18, 2023

Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.

© 2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Posted December 2023

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