Hi all,

There is a lot of interest in Citizen Science and mosquitoes! Since the inception of the Mosquitoes in Hawai`i" Project in May 2015, there have been several programs started across the world aimed at engaging people to seek out and help control mosquitoes in their own communities. Great ideas!

Below is a list of a few of these which share some similarities to the our project here:

The first, "the Invasive Mosquito Project is aimed at monitoring invasive container-inhabiting mosquito species across the United States" by following an egg collection protocol for students at a variety of grade levels. I know the PI on this project, their model focuses on egg collection, identifications are by experts so should be of high quality, geo-referencing is at the school level, and some participants send samples in the mail back to the principal investigator.

The second effort I will mention is a program started in Spain that has an app for mosquito surveys that includes photo documentation of mosquitoes focused also in invasive Aedes species (sounds familiar!). Here an app Mosquito Alert assists data collection that includes photos of adults and identification is by experts that review the records. This latter app is being developed for worldwide deployment (see “Global Mosquito Alert” below).

The third I will mention is Nasa sponsored Globe program with their Globe Observer app that allows citizen scientists to collect data on mosquito habitat and larvae. The work-flow is managed by the app, and there are detailed training materials on the web to help teachers, students and community members to use the web or the app (for iTunes and Android) to collect data. The data are freely shared worldwide at a Nasa portal. And impressively, having only been released for a few months there are already data from the Mideast and beyond. Although identification of larvae is somewhat more difficult than adults, necessitating the use of microscopes, the project video shows people using relatively inexpensive microscopes lenses that you can attach to your smartphone. In common with folks using larval surveys to collect information for the “Mosquitoes in Hawai`i" project one of the main benefits of the protocol is that it helps people focus on the source of mosquitoes (watery container habitats) that they can clean out, treat or dump out in order to help reduce mosquitoes in their communities without necessarily needing to identify them. For more information on the project see Globe observer mosquitoes.

Use of this app to study mosquitoes in their larval habitats is being promoted by the Association of Science Technology Centers for a ‘Global Experiment’ for the 2017 International Science Center and Science Museum Day on November 10th, 2017 and continuing throughout the year (for more information on participating see Global Experiment). Let’s check out the app and make a concerted effort to contribute to the efforts that kick-off November 10th!

In addition to our project, these are but three of the efforts that are underway, there are several more, and indeed these efforts are being integrated into a “Global Mosquito Alert” that is taking shape at the highest levels (see https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/press-release-global-mosquito-alert).

As I learn more I hope to report back on how we can contribute to this effort through our unique experience both crowd-sourcing mosquito data collection and mosquito identification to raise awareness about how these invasive species affect the health and well-being of people and wildlife in Hawai`i and what we might do about them!

That's a lot to check out, if you do have a chance to try out these apps and/or contribute to these projects, please leave any comments below (and don't forget to add any photo data you get to our project as well)!

All the best,

Durrell (@cydno)