Pratip Shil , Gajanan N. Sapkal , Avinash A. Patil , Satish N. Gunjal , Anakathil B. Sudeep

ICMR - National Institute of Virology, 130/1 Sus Road, Pashan, Pune 411021, India
Author    Correspondence author
Journal of Mosquito Research, 2018, Vol. 8, No. 3   doi: 10.5376/jmr.2018.08.0003
Received: 08 Jan., 2018    Accepted: 27 Feb., 2018    Published: 30 Mar., 2018

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Shil P., Sapkal G.N., Patil A.A., Gunjal S.N., and Sudeep A.B., 2018, Meteorological parameters and seasonal variability of mosquito population in Pune urban zone, India: a year-round study, 2017, Journal of Mosquito Research, 8(3): 18-28 (doi: 10.5376/jmr.2018.08.0003)

The re-emergence of vector-borne viral diseases in an emerging climate change scenario has raised considerable public health concern in rapidly expanding cities of India where altered land-use and environmental factors have resulted in increased mosquito breeding and occurrences of dengue and chikungunya in the recent years. The present year-round study was undertaken to investigate the seasonal variability and demographic diversity of mosquito population in the Pune urban-zone, western India, (18.52°N / 73.85°E), which is located on the eastern slope of the Western Ghats mountain range with considerable green cover. Mosquitoes were trapped from different localities (fixed trapping sites) representative of the urban-zone throughout the year covering all the four seasons. Specimens were identified, determined the demographic diversity, mosquito abundance and the association of the latter to meteorological parameters. Meteorological parameters were recorded daily and analyzed mathematically to obtain the derived parameters and fortnightly averages. Thirteen species of mosquitoes were found across the Pune urban-zone covering 4 genera, i.e., Aedes, Anopheles, Armigeres and Culex. Culex spp. was abundant throughout the year, while spurt in Aedes population was seen only during South West Monsoon (SW). Overall, mosquito abundance increased during the SW Monsoon due to low diurnal temperature range (DTR) along with increased rainfall and humidity, but decreased during winter followed by a slight increase during the Pre-Monsoon season. Seasonal variability of mosquito abundance and demographic diversity was observed in the study area which may form a basis for prospective systematic surveys and control measures.

Mosquito; Seasonal variability; Meteorology; Dengue; Pune; India; Chikungunya