Well, it has been a long while since we updated vectorecology.org. Sometimes, personal life intervenes, and updates took a back-burner for the last 9 months. But, time to shake off the dust. So, I will start with this image of Culex egg rafts in a stagnant pool, part of an artificial creek. The egg rafts are [...]
End of the semester musings
It has been a while since I posted here, busy with teaching, manuscripts, life. But I have had some interesting experiences of late, and I will share them here for anyone interested. First, some trivia. I always teach that mosquitoes don't transmit bacteria, and I maintain that this is still a true statement. However, a [...]
A Zika Summary
Zika virus has recently emerged in Central and South America, causing millions of cases of fever. This mosquito-borne virus, related to dengue, yellow fever, and West Nile viruses causes a relatively mild bout of flu-like symptoms for a week or so. One notable symptom is reddening of the eyes. In most healthy adults, or even [...]
Mosquitoes in Winter
Well, we finally have winter like weather here in NC. I saw a flying, adult Aedes vexans on December 23rd, but the hard freezes over the last couple of days should eliminate those guys. Early in my academic career, I remember seeing a talk by a "freelance" mosquito control professional who provided service to New [...]
Flowers and mosquitoes and flies, oh my!
There is an assumption that flowers, at least those that use animals pollinators, evolve towards specialization. This, in turn, leads to the evolution of "pollination syndromes," in which the morphology of flowers coevolves with its pollinator, but retains some generalizability. Hence, we may have "bee syndrome" or a "hummingbird syndrome" flowers, with corresponding floral shapes, [...]
What’s in a Name?
Among the insects, it would be hard to say there is a single group of more importance to humans than the mosquitoes. Oh, to be fair bees (and all pollinators) are wonderful, necessary parts of our agroecosystems, and there are many herbivorous insects (and their predators) that impact agriculture. But for a single family, the [...]
Sleeping in the Garden of Eden
I am actually on vacation at the end of this week in the Bay area, staying with close family friends of my wife near Palo Alto. We eat outside, sleep with screen-less windows open, and generally enjoy this soft climate. As a mosquito biologist, however, one always wonders what dangers lurk in the unseen containers [...]
Do you get hungry when it’s cold? Mosquito larvae do.
The temperature of the environment is critical to the growth of organisms that cannot generate their own heat, including insects. As a general rule, the warmer the environment, the faster an insect grows, at least in part because their metabolism increases with increased temperature. This speedy development does come with a cost: smaller size as [...]
Late-instar Behavior of Aedes aegypti (Diptera: Culicidae) Larvae in Different Thermal and Nutritive Environments
Reiskind, M.H. and Janairo, M.S. 2015 Late-instar Behavior of Aedes aegypti Larvae in Different Thermal and Nutritive Environments. Journal of Medical Entomology, DOI: 10.1093/jme/tjv088. View PDF
Spermatheca
Here's a video clip of live sperm swimming in an Aedes albopictus spermatheca.