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Human and Environmental Influences on Ecosystem Services and West Nile Virus Vector Infection in Suffolk County, New York (USA)
Citation:
Myer, M., S. Campbell, AND JohnM Johnston. Human and Environmental Influences on Ecosystem Services and West Nile Virus Vector Infection in Suffolk County, New York (USA). ACES 2016 – A Community on Ecosystem Services, Jacksonville, FL, December 05 - 09, 2016.
Impact/Purpose:
Quantifying the benefits of ecoservices to human health
Description:
Healthy, functioning aquatic ecosystems provide the ecosystem service of mosquito population control. Nutrient and pesticide pollution, along with destruction and filling of wetlands, lead to impaired waterbodies that are less effective in vector regulation due to reduction or removal of predators of mosquito larvae. The first confirmed outbreak of West Nile Virus (WNV) infection in North America was New York City, NY in 1999. As a result, a number of nearby counties are a particular locus for disease transmission, and mosquito trapping and testing are conducted regularly to assess the prevalence of the virus in local mosquito populations. The common house mosquito (Cu/ex pipiens-restuans) is implicated as a primary vector of the disease in the northeast U.S. and is known to breed in impaired fresh waters. This vector species complex is actively controlled by the local government in Suffolk County, NY, and robust decision support tools are requ ired to select critical areas for pesticide application and public health outreach, as well as to identify land use patterns and other human influences leading to increased disease incidence.Using WNV mosquito surveillance data from 2008-2015, logistic regression and an analysis of spatial and temporal factors were used to identify ecosystem attributes, meteorological va riables, and anthropogenic ecosystem alterations that are indicative of WNV-positive mosquito populations. Emphasis was placed on evaluating explanatory variables related to coastal and freshwater wetland ecosystems and the built environment, to quantify the impact of land use decisions on WNV prevalence. The resulting model can be used to prioritize areas that have a relatively higher risk of harboring WNV for vector control treatment and public health support, leading to more informed management of ecosystem services for human health outcomes.
