Effectiveness of Mosquito Magnet in Preserved Area on the Coastal Atlantic Rainforest: Implication for Entomological Surveillance

• Published in: Journal of medical entomology Vol. 51; no. 5; pp. 915 - 924
• Main Authors: Chaves, LSM, Laporta, G Z, Sallum, MAM
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01-09-2014
• Subjects: Culicidae; A, Atlantic
• ISSN: 0022-2585
• DOI: 10.1603/ME12236

A variety of traps are used for sampling, surveillance, and monitoring of mosquito vector species associated with parasite and pathogen transmission. Here, we assessed the performance of the Mosquito Magnet Independence trap with Lurex3 (MMI), by comparing its effectiveness with those of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention light trap (CDC-LT) and CDC with CO2 and Lurex3 (CDC-A) in a dense tropical rainforest. Multivariate generalized linear models revealed significant differences among the traps regarding mosquito composition and abundance (deviance = 768; P = 0.016). Variance analyses indicated that the MMI captured significantly more mosquitoes compared with CDC-LT (P < 0.01) and CDC-A (P < 0.03). The abundance values did not significantly differ between the CDC-LT and CDC-A traps (P = 0.7). Mosquito species richness was higher from the MMI than from the CDC-LT and CDC-A traps. Furthermore, medically important mosquito species captured by the three traps showed high association with MMI. These results suggest the potential to use the MMI in studies aiming to obtain entomological surveillance information about medically important mosquitoes that occur in tropical rainforest areas. The MMI could also be used in faunal studies focusing on increasing knowledge about mosquito diversity. Considering the present positive results, the effectiveness of the MMI should additionally be evaluated in other Brazilian natural ecosystems. Further studies are also needed to address demographic data from the mosquito population sampled by the MMI.