2026/01/01 by Georgios Balatsos, Vasileios Karras, Marco Neira +11 · 1 voice
Medicine · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Mosquito-borne diseases and control #Malaria Research and Control #Insect symbiosis and bacterial influences
paper · pdf · doi:10.1051/parasite/2026033
openalex publication_date 2026/01/01 · openalex created_date 2026/06/04 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/27
Effective surveillance of invasive Aedes mosquitoes, particularly Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus , is essential for early detection, risk assessment, and optimization of control strategies such as the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT). Although BG-Sentinel 2 traps are widely used in Europe, their performance under eastern Mediterranean conditions remains insufficiently evaluated. We assessed the attractiveness of BG-Sentinel 2 traps baited with BG-Lure, dry ice (CO 2 ), their combination, and unbaited controls using a Latin square field design in Larnaca and Nicosia, Cyprus. A total of 1,649 mosquitoes were collected. In Larnaca, Ae. aegypti occurred at low densities. Male captures were consistently low and unaffected by attractants, while female captures increased significantly only when BG-Lure and CO 2 were combined (RR = 2.7, 95% CI: 1.6–4.5). In Nicosia, Ae. albopictus was abundant, but responses were sex-specific. Male captures were significantly reduced by CO 2 alone (RR = 0.297, 95% CI: 0.175–0.467), with a weaker reduction when combined with BG-Lure, while female captures were not significantly affected by any treatment. For Culex pipiens , CO 2 strongly increased female captures (RR ≈ 16), irrespective of BG-Lure, whereas males showed only a modest response to BG-Lure alone. Overall, attractant efficacy was highly species- and sex-specific. Standard baiting strategies did not consistently enhance detection of invasive Aedes mosquitoes and, in some cases, reduced male captures, with implications for SIT programs. These findings emphasize the need for local validation of surveillance protocols particularly at points of entry.