Reproductive phase locking of mosquito populations in response to rainfall frequency.

• Main Authors: Jeffrey Shaman, Jonathan F Day
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2007-01-01
• Series: PLoS ONE
• Online Access: http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC1824708?pdf=render

The frequency of moderate to heavy rainfall events is projected to change in response to global warming. Here we show that these hydrologic changes may have a profound effect on mosquito population dynamics and rates of mosquito-borne disease transmission. We develop a simple model, which treats the mosquito reproductive cycle as a phase oscillator that responds to rainfall frequency forcing. This model reproduces observed mosquito population dynamics and indicates that mosquito-borne disease transmission can be sensitive to rainfall frequency. These findings indicate that changes to the hydrologic cycle, in particular the frequency of moderate to heavy rainfall events, could have a profound effect on the transmission rates of some mosquito-borne diseases.