Lidar reveals activity anomaly of malaria vectors during pan-African eclipse
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Published version
Date
2020-05-13
Authors
Brydegaard, Mikkel
Jansson, Samuel
Malmqvist, Elin
Mlacha, Yeromin P.
Gebru, Alem
Okumu, Fredros
Killeen, Gerry F.
Kirkeby, Carsten
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Published Version
Abstract
Yearly, a quarter billion people are infected and a half a million killed by the mosquito-borne disease malaria. Lack of real-time observational tools for continuously assessing the unperturbed mosquito flight activity in situ limits progress toward improved vector control. We deployed a high-resolution entomological lidar to monitor a half kilometer static transect adjacent to a Tanzanian village. We evaluated one-third million insect observations during five nights, four days, and one annular solar eclipse. We demonstrate in situ lidar classification of several insect families and their sexes based on their modulation signatures. We were able to compare the fine-scale spatiotemporal activity patterns of malaria vectors during ordinary days and an eclipse to disentangle phototactic activity patterns from the circadian mechanism. We observed an increased insect activity during the eclipse attributable to mosquitoes. These unprecedented findings demonstrate how lidar-based monitoring of distinct mosquito activities could advance our understanding of vector ecology.
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Keywords
Malaria , Flight activity , Insect activity , Insect family , Mosquito-borne disease , Solar eclipse , Spatiotemporal activity
Citation
Brydegaard, M., Jansson, S., Malmqvist, E., Mlacha, Y. P., Gebru, A., Okumu, F., Killeen, G. F. and Kirkeby, C. (2020) 'Lidar reveals activity anomaly of malaria vectors during pan-African eclipse', Science Advances, 6 (20), eaay5487 (9 pp). doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aay5487