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Highlands Today

Hurricanes Bring Hordes Of Mosquitoes

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By JIM KONKOLY

Highlands Today

Published: September 3, 2008

SEBRING - There are some scary facts about the interaction of hurricanes and the mosquito population.

The bottom line, hurricanes and the great rainfalls they bring across a huge area can create a sudden and dramatic spike in the number of mosquitoes.

Details on how big the mosquito population can grow and how it grows in the wake of tropical storms was released at Tuesday's Highlands County Commission meeting in a four-page science paper written by an expert on the subject at the University of Florida.

Consider this fact about them, quoted from "Hurricanes and Mosquitoes," a scientific research report written by C. Roxanne Rutledge. She is an assistant professor of entomology and nematology at the University of Florida's Medical Entomology Laboratory at Vero Beach.

Right now, the two types of mosquitoes - floodwater mosquitoes and standing-water mosquitoes - are in Highlands and most other Florida counties.

Floodwater mosquitoes lay up to 200 eggs per batch in cattle ranch, citrus and other farm fields and any type of vacant land.

"One can consider," Rutledge wrote, "the potential extent of this habitat by thinking about how much land in Florida is pasture, citrus grove, or large expanses of uninhabited flat land.

"There are estimates," she continued, "of the number of mosquito eggs in a floodwater habitat between 700,000 and 1.3 million eggs per acre. Yes - per acre.

"If only a small percentage of those eggs hatched and survived to the adult stage, the number of adult mosquitoes flying around looking for blood at one time is almost incomprehensible."

Floodwater mosquitoes, Rutledge explained, are unique in that the female lays eggs in the moist areas of pastures, citrus furrows, salt marshes and swales.

"These moist areas eventually dry out," Rutledge continued, "and the mosquito eggs also dry and become encased in the cracks and crevices of the dried mud. Because of their unique biology, the eggs need to dry out before they could hatch into larvae.

"The eggs survive in the dry soil through the winter and spring, and then with rains from storms or hurricanes, those areas are inundated with water. The water that reaches the eggs provides a cue to hatch."

When many floodwater mosquitoes hatch, she wrote, some areas of Florida face what she called "the double whammy" because standing-water mosquitoes also are breeding quickly and in dramatic numbers in the wake of tropical-storm rainfalls.

"The combination of the egg-laying habits of these two groups of mosquitoes provides for a double whammy put in place by the activity (tropical storms) that occurred during 2004," Rutledge wrote. "When dry areas flood, the floodwater mosquito eggs hatch. When the floodwater has no where to go, the standing-water mosquitoes have more places to lay their eggs.

"This is what a large portion of Florida experienced."

Edgar Stokes, chairman of the Highlands County commissioners, asked county Administrator Michael Wright and Vicki Pontius, director of parks and recreation, to bring as much expert information about mosquitoes in the wake of tropical storms to Tuesday's county commission meeting.

Copies of Rutledge's report were available at the meeting and can still be obtained at the county government center.

Rutledge also wrote that the common-sense advice, that homeowners can help abate a mosquito infestation by removing sources of standing water in their yards, is not effective after a tropical storm has created huge numbers of standing-water pools.

"The mosquito breeding habitats resulting from the types of rain events from hurricanes are too vast for an individual homeowner to attempt to impact," she wrote. "It is best to leave the source reduction and treatment of such vast water sources to the mosquito control agencies."

Jim Konkoly can be reached at 863-386-5855 or e-mail jkonkoly@highlandstoday.com

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