Silvicultural treatments affect adult mosquito (Diptera: Culicidae) abundance and species diversity in a managed forest

Mosquito-borne disease is a serious public health concern worldwide, and transmission may be facilitated by the creation of favorable habitat conditions by human activities. Timber harvesting treatments can alter the diversity or abundance of adult mosquito species through a variety of mechanisms, such as heavily harvested stands may have fewer tree holes, providing habitat for developing larvae. The goal of this study was to analyze the response of adult mosquito abundance and diversity to different timber harvesting treatments. To test my hypotheses, mosquito surveillance was conducted from 6 June to 23 August 2022 in the Demeritt Experimental Forest in Old Town, Maine, across five different treatments: 1) hardwood stands with no recent harvest, 2) softwood stands with no recent harvest, 3) overstory removal, 4) thinning, and 5) shelterwood establishment cuts. Light and infusion baited gravid traps were deployed to collect a diversity of adult mosquitoes in 13 forest stands. A total of 4,843 mosquitoes were collected with three dominant taxa that were Aedes japonicus (6.48%), an invasive mosquito, Anopheles puntipennis (6.48%), a vector species for West Nile virus (WNV), and Coquillettidia perturbans (67.33%), a vector species for WNV and Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE). The no recent harvest in the hardwood stands treatment resulted in a higher mosquito count compared to alternative treatments, while the softwood thinning treatment produced the lowest mosquito total. Overall, the results indicates that the risk of arboviruses transmitted by vector species may be inhibited by forest management practices reducing Ae. japonicus, An.punctipennis and Cq. perturbans abundance.