TY  - JOUR
T1  - Larval Habitats as Dynamic Disease Infrastructure: Linking Aquatic Microecology, Urban Form, Weather Variability, and Adult Mosquito Production
A1  - Hassan Rahman
A1  - Tariq Mahmood
A1  - Petra Novak
A1  - Milan Horvat
JF  - Entomology and Applied Science Letters
JO  - Entomol Appl Sci Lett
SN  - 2349-2864
Y1  - 2025
VL  - 12
IS  - 4
DO  - 10.51847/iPTKctbKYA
SP  - 1
EP  - 11
N2  - Urban mosquito control commonly treats water-holding objects as discrete breeding sites, although their capacity to produce epidemiologically relevant adult mosquitoes depends on changing interactions among aquatic microecology, urban infrastructure, weather, human water management, and larval development. This article addresses the conceptual gap between detecting potential larval habitat and explaining how particular urban aquatic systems become persistent sources of adult vectors. It develops an original spatial-ecological theory by integrating evidence on habitat structure, aquatic microbiota, detrital and nutritional resources, density-dependent competition, water storage, drainage, weather-driven hydroperiods, and larval carryover effects on adult phenotypes. The synthesis indicates that larval habitats should be understood as dynamically activated components of urban disease infrastructure rather than as uniformly hazardous containers. Water presence, larval occupancy, pupal productivity, adult emergence, human exposure, and disease transmission constitute related but non-equivalent states. Built structures influence mosquito production only when their physical configuration and management interact with biologically suitable and sufficiently persistent aquatic conditions. The resulting adults may also differ in survival, fecundity, physiological condition, insecticide response, and pathogen-related traits because larval developmental environments leave carryover effects. The proposed theory remains non-validated and is limited by inconsistent habitat definitions, mismatched spatial and temporal scales, incomplete linkage between immature and adult surveillance, and restricted evidence connecting adult production to observed transmission. Its central implication is that research and management should classify habitat states, not merely container types, and should align surveillance indicators with the specific ecological or epidemiological inference required.
UR  - https://easletters.com/article/larval-habitats-as-dynamic-disease-infrastructure-linking-aquatic-microecology-urban-form-weather-kw0uukmy44rzz4p
ER  -