Angelica Madsen

Title: Local introduction and heterogeneous spatial spread of dengue-suppressing Wolbachia

through an urban population of Aedes aegypti

Introduction: Dengue fever is one the most common arboviral disease affecting humans in the

tropical and subtropical countries. The main attempt to control this disease has been

suppression of the principal mosquito vector, Ae. aegypti, either through source reduction or

insecticide-based control programs. Although the control methods aren't as sufficient as they

need to be. Instead of the control efforts the scientists want to modify populations using

olbachia into naturally uninfected

long-lasting local introductions of a dengue-inhibiting W

populations of Ae. aegypti. By introducing the Wolbachia when they breed with the uninfected

mosquitoes it makes it so that they can't reproduce. They will establish three major release

areas and document the wMel establishment and heterogeneous spatial spread.

Methods: Ae. aegypti adults infected with wMel strain of Wolbachia were released in 3 zones

(EHW, PP, and WC). More mosquitoes were released in the areas with a higher density

population to begin with. Mosquito traps were set up expanding from the release zones to tell

how fast the populations of the ae.aegypti are spreading the wMel strain of Wolbachia. Each

trap was checked weekly and the adult mosquitoes from each trap were stored in ethanol at

20C. The mosquitoes were then shipped to Monash University where the Wolbachia

frequencies were determined by PCR. Then the populations were referenced with weather data

such as rainfall and season.

Results: The changes of the seasons affected the populations at a constant rate. EHW and PP

were both invaded quickly, and by the time releases had finished, Wolbachia infection
frequencies within each release zone had reached p = 0.85.For PP, the increase in r0 becomes

roughly linear with time after the first 3 intervals (i.e., after day 150), with r0 ~ w, approximates a

logistic. Dropping the first 3 time intervals, the regression of r0 on time has slope cd = 0.289 m

per day at PP; the mean wave width is 366 m. The likelihood estimate of wave speed is

0.250.37 m per day. The denser initial population was at EHW which also had the smallest

dispersion radius.

Discussions: The failure to establish the wMel and spread at WC seems to relate to the size of

the small release zone. The habitable conditions at WC were relatively the same as the PP

location and the EHW. This means that the spread at WC must have been because of the small

population present. The math predicted this would happen, shown on the minimum release

zone radius. The same results can help explain why EHW spread increased more than PP.

Based on the dispersion results we can predict that in a higher denser area of Ae. aegypti the

dispersion distance is smaller.

Conclusion: Given that PP has consistently higher population densities, this difference may

reflect less dispersal in a habitat where mosquito densities are higher. However, this needs

further testing against alternative hypotheses, such as more dispersal barriers surrounding the

PP vs. the EHW release areas. Both the EHW and PP shows the dispersals are consistent with

values obtained from releaserecapture experiments.

Bibliography:

http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2001894#sec002