Close Encounters of the Mosquito Kind: Modeling Aedes Albopictus' Distribution and Abundance at the City Scale Under Climate Change

Aedes albopictus (Diptera: Culicidae) is an invasive mosquito in Germany that is capable of transmitting a number of vector-borne diseases such as West Nile virus, chikungunya virus and dengue virus. Aedes albopictus is therefore both an economic and public health burden. Aedes albopictus is also known to occur more readily in sub-urban areas than natural areas and is expected to extend its range and increase in abundance in Germany with warming temperatures due to climate change. These factors, in addition to the high density of human populations in urban areas, creates the need to accurately determine its current and future distributions and abundances in urban areas to inform management practices. In this work, high resolution temperature data will be obtained from Sentinel-2 and applied to various cities across Germany. Aedes albopictus abundances will be modeled at all stages of its life cycle based on these temperatures using a mechanistic model. Furthermore, a multi-weighted criteria analysis (MWCA) will also be utilized in order to identify the affinity of Ae. albopictus for various urban areas during its different life stages. The affinities for Ae. albopictus for these varying urban areas will then be consolidated with the results of the mechanistic model to produce results that will accurately illuminate the distribution and abundances of Ae. albopictus in various urban settings at varying stages of its life cycle. The results under the current day climate may be used for targeted management practices, and, for future climate scenarios, the results may be used as input on where to focus preventative measures.