MOSQUITO SPECIES DISTRIBUTION IN TIRES IN RURAL AND URBAN LANDSCAPES ACROSS NORTHERN KENTUCKY

Discarded vehicle tires can be found in habitats spanning a human land-use gradient from rural to urban and create an ideal artificial container habitat for mosquito larval development. The purpose of this study was to examine mosquito species composition in discarded vehicle tires in rural and urban habitats. Discarded tires were placed at 6 rural and 6 urban forested sites and sampled weekly for juvenile mosquitoes. Adult traps were also placed at these sites and were sampled weekly. There was no significant difference between the total number of juvenile mosquitoes collected from tires in urban sites compared to rural sites, but significantly more Aedes triseriatus and Ae. albopictus juveniles were found in urban sites compared to rural sites. This study also found that significantly more adult mosquitoes were collected in urban sites compared to rural, but there were no significant differences found between sites when comparing individual species. The results of this study suggest discarded vehicle tires are important mosquito larval habitats across human-land-use gradients and that Ae. triseriatus may be more common in urban areas than previously thought.