Assessing mosquito community composition along urban gradients: Implications for West Nile virus transmission risk

Understanding how urbanization influences mosquito communities is critical for managing vector-borne diseases. We investigated mosquito diversity across urban gradients using aspirators in diverse habitats. We hypothesized reduced mosquito species diversity and increased abundance of competent West Nile virus (WNV) vectors in more urbanized areas. Our study encompassed all five New York City (NYC) boroughs and took place in the summer months from June to September 2024 during peak WNV transmission season. Mosquitoes were collected using 10-minute aspirator runs from 20 NYC Parks representing varying degrees of urbanization. We performed morphological species identification using a dichotomous key for the Northeast U.S. and evaluated species richness, and diversity indices across the gradient using the ‘vegan’ package in R. Preliminary results indicate a trend of decreased species richness in highly urbanized sites compared to less urbanized locations, with increased relative abundance of competent vectors, including Culex pipens and Culex restuans. These findings suggest that urbanization may favor the increased abundance of certain mosquito species, potentially elevating the risk of WNV transmission in urban areas. We identified urban features linked to a higher relative abundance of competent vectors that can be targeted for increased surveillance and control interventions. Future directions include analyses incorporating other environmental variables, bloodmeal analyses, and mosquito infection prevalence to shed light on the mechanisms driving shifts in mosquito community composition and WNV transmission along urban gradients.