Citizen science and smartphone e-entomology enables low-cost upscaling of mosquito surveillance

[Display omitted] •Citizen scientists can be recruited for fixed point trapping mosquito surveillance.•Surveillance data from citizens exhibits typical seasonality and species richness.•e-entomology was suitable for mosquito identification and counting.•Mosquito species composition was biased by tra...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Science of the total environment 2020-02, Vol.704, p.135349-135349, Article 135349
Main Authors: Braz Sousa, Larissa, Fricker, Stephen R., Doherty, Seamus S., Webb, Cameron E., Baldock, Katherine L., Williams, Craig R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aedes
Animals
Australia
Citizen Science
Community
Costing
Data Collection
Entomology
Environmental Monitoring - methods
Humans
Mosquito Control
Public health
Smartphone
South Australia
Species diversity
Urban
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Summary:[Display omitted] •Citizen scientists can be recruited for fixed point trapping mosquito surveillance.•Surveillance data from citizens exhibits typical seasonality and species richness.•e-entomology was suitable for mosquito identification and counting.•Mosquito species composition was biased by trap type.•Citizen science mosquito surveillance is less expensive than professional programs. Mosquito surveillance remains a cornerstone of pest and disease control operations globally but is strongly limited in scale by resources. The use of citizen science to upscale scientific data collection is commonplace, and mosquito surveillance programs have begun to make use of citizen scientists in several countries, particularly for exotic species detection. Here we report on a proof of concept trial in southern Australia for a citizen science mosquito surveillance program characterised by fixed point trapping with BG GAT devices and remote mosquito identification through emailed images, which we term ‘e-entomology’. In a study with 126 participants, we detected mosquito seasonality with peak abundance in mid-summer (1.78 mosquitoes per trap per day), weather correlations (positive correlation with maximum temperature, r = 0.41) and a diversity of species (15 of 22 known species in the region) in a metropolitan setting. Whilst we demonstrated that the costs of a citizen science program is only about 20% of a comparable professional surveillance program, the mosquito community sampled by citizen scientists was biased towards container-inhabiting species, particularly Aedes notoscriptus. This is the first time fixed-point mosquito trapping has been combined with citizen science e-entomology to deliver comprehensive surveillance of urban mosquitoes.
ISSN:0048-9697
1879-1026
DOI:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.135349