Chapter 6: Multiple Dimensions of Aedes aegypti Population Growth: Modeling the Impacts of Resource Dependence on Mass and Age at Emergence
Mosquitoes are responsible for the transmission of many diseases which lead to a large burden on public health. The age and size of adult mosquitoes impacts their ability to transmit disease. Older mosquitoes are more likely to have acquired a pathogen, and larger mosquitoes typically have higher fitness. In this chapter, we examine how larval resources affect the age and mass distributions of adult mosquitoes. We develop a partial differential equation model of juvenile and adult mosquitoes across time, age, and mass, and we incorporate resource dependence in the juvenile growth and death functions to determine differential effects of these on mosquito population dynamics. We find that the resource-dependent growth shows much larger changes in population dynamics than resource-dependent death. Furthermore, we predict that longer oscillations in resource lead to more extreme swings in population size than shorter oscillations in resources or decaying resources. We discuss our results in the context of mitigation strategies for mosquito and mosquito-borne disease control.