ABSTRACT
In the last 2 decades, many new Florida county mosquito records have been discovered. The intent of this report is to establish unpublished county records to update the known distribution of mosquito species in Florida. We report 92 new county records from 5 major sources collected during 1989–2019.
The last major publication showing the distribution of mosquito species in every Florida county (USA) was published by Darsie and Morris (2000) in their taxonomic keys to Florida mosquitoes. The authors noted that the distribution tables (3 and 4) were mostly from unpublished records and encouraged mosquito control programs to check local county fauna and keep voucher specimens. Since 2000, many Florida county and some state records have been discovered; some have been published (Darsie et al. 2002; Darsie 2003; Darsie and Shroyer 2004; Smith et al. 2006; Shroyer et al. 2015; Blosser and Burkett-Cadena 2016, 2017; Connelly et al. 2016; Shin et al. 2016; Riles et al. 2017). The intent of this report is to establish unpublished county records and to update the known distribution of mosquito species in Florida.
Data sources for locating Florida county mosquito records were from 5 primary sources: 1) University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory (FMEL) Connelly Extension Lab. Data were collected while working on various mosquito research and extension projects from 1999 to 2017. 2) Bradford County (FL) Cooperative Extension Service, Bradford County Buzz Busters. Buzz Busters was a team of volunteers from Bradford County, FL, organized to assist the county mosquito control program (https://www.bradfordcountyfl.gov/mosquito). Following that sound integrated mosquito management is based on surveillance, the volunteer team collected and identified mosquitoes on a regular basis during the mosquito season and the data were provided to the mosquito control official through the FMEL and the Bradford County Extension Service. Records from June 2006 to July 2016 from Bradford County were examined. 3) Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS). The FDACS provided funding to the University of Florida (UF), FMEL (FDACS contract no. 00094772, UF project no. 00117732), to determine baseline populations of mosquitoes in 13 interior Florida counties for 2014–15. The objective of the grant was to assist Florida counties with their mosquito surveillance for meeting Federal Emergency Management Agency requirements; many county records were established during the project. Florida Emergency Management personnel set the traps and shipped the mosquito collections to FMEL for identification. 4) University of South Florida (USF), Global Health Infectious Disease Research Program, Department of Global Health. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided funding (Cooperative Agreement No. U01CK000510) to monitor wintertime eastern equine encephalitis vector activity in Walton County, FL, 2017–19. Mosquitoes were aspirated from resting boxes and identified by USF and Manatee County Mosquito Control District. 5) Florida mosquito control agency records. Florida mosquito control agencies shared current and historical mosquito surveillance data.
We examined the available data sets for each Florida county for species that had not been previously reported in tables 3 and 4 of Darsie and Morris (2000) to generate a list of potential new records. Next, we reviewed the scientific literature using the mosquito species names and Florida as keywords. If there was a published record, we removed that species from our list. For the remaining records, we checked the reported Global Positioning System coordinates for accuracy to town level. Collection notes were made to describe life stage collected, habitats, trapping method, date collected, and collector and identifier information. Ninety-two Florida county records are reported here (Tables 1 and 2).
We thank the following individuals for their mosquito surveillance and identification efforts and for sharing their data for this manuscript: C. Adams, J. Almasi, B. Bayer, K. Betts, E. Blosser, P. Brabant, M. Buono, N. Burkett-Cadena, B. Carey-Kovach, R. Clark, E. Cope, M. Dersch, J. DeValerio, J. Duerr, J. Faella, D. Gettlefinger, W. Grimm, B. Healy, R. Heinig, C. Holderman, D. Hood, A. Horton, B. Hunt, E. Jiorle, D. Killingsworth, C. Lesser, A. Lloyd, H. Lynn, K. McDaniels, K. Miley, G. Morse, C. Mulla, E. Northey, C. Porterfield, N. Pruitt, J. Puente, L. Reeves, D. Reitenbach, W. Schirrmacher, B. Searcy, J. Shamlaty, D. Shroyer, J. Stuck, T. Sutton, C. Thomas, M. Tressler, T. Unnasch, M. Ward, and K. Winters.
We thank the following mosquito control districts (MCD) and other agencies for sharing data for this manuscript: Bay County MCD, Beach MCD, Bradford County Cooperative Extension, Bradford County BuzzBusters, Brevard County MCD, Charlotte County MCD, Citrus County MCD, Collier MCD, Environmental Security Pest & Lawn, Escambia County MCD, Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Sciences, Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory, Gulf County MCD, Manatee County MCD, North Walton MCD, Pasco County MCD, Sarasota Mosquito Management Services, South Walton MCD, University of South Florida, and Volusia County MCD.
