With pests growing resistant to insecticides, and climate change creating a bug boom, towns consider a lab-bred mosquito with a killer gene.
outskirts of Visalia in Tulare County, California, Bryan Ruiz drives down a familiar dirt road that cuts through farmland. He comes up to an irrigation pipe that’s created a “pretty nasty” situation—a small patch of vegetation and algae-covered water baking under the early June sun. As his shadow looms over the pool, a wormlike critter less than half an inch long quickly tries to submerge out of sight, but before it can, Ruiz scoops it up with a long metal dipper.
The DMVCD team puts out two kinds of traps in neighborhoods during summer. The blue one is used for blood-hunting species likeWhile Oxitec’s invention is trademarked as “Friendly” mosquitoes, not everyone is charmed by the genetically tweaked insects making a buzz in the neighborhood. National and local groups have complained about the state’s review process and the company’s approach to consulting and communicating with residents.
That spread is partly influenced by climate change, says Erin Mordecai, an infectious disease ecologist at Stanford University. Mosquitoes are ectotherms, meaning they’re dependent on external sources of heat. “Every life cycle process they go through,” she says, “is dependent on temperature.” A warmer environment speeds up their life cycle, so they reach adult stages faster, have more offspring over a longer breeding season, and bite more humans.
To push down mosquito numbers, the district tries to stop them when they are young and most vulnerable. First, the team urges locals to eliminate standing water. But the microscopic black eggs of are easily mistaken for mold, dirt, even shaving stubble, Grippin says. Simply emptying containers doesn’t always work, because eggs can survive without moisture for up to a year. “Once you put more water in, they hatch,” Ruiz says. He recommends deep scrubbing and repeated checkups.
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