Aedes Albopictus: Disrupt In Ecosystems

Many things can disrupt and also alter our ecosystems. When you take a look around our environment, most living organisms that you see were introduced primarily by human activity. Most benefactors are due to the disrupts on the ecosystems which comes from invasive species. Invasive species are a non-native organisms (or plant) alien to an ecosystem. These invaders are capable of sweeping across aggressively into a habitat and taking over the resources like food, sunlight, nutrients, water, and space. Their invasion mostly likely causes economic or environmental harm, and could harm human health. One invader in particular is the Aedes albopictus, also known as the Asian tiger mosquito. The Asian tiger mosquito has a black body with white stripes …show more content…
In this case, the Asian tiger mosquito out-competed other mosquitoes who already lived in that particular habitat, such as Aedes aegypti, the yellow fever mosquito. When the mosquito finds their breeding grounds, eggs are placed in a moist area just above the surface water and are also capable of living through the winter. Eggs hatch upon inundation and immature stages, larvae and pupae, of the life cycle occur in water (Walton). Adult mosquitos die off in cold weather, there forth leaving the eggs near water which would hatch again in the spring. By that stage, the larvae which turn into new adult mosquitoes in less than two weeks, sometimes as short as a week in hot weather (Miller). Miller states that “they prefer warm weather, so they have been identified in every county in Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and Tennessee, as well as many counties in surrounding states”. These mosquitos breed in small puddles of standing water near human population, in diverse places like old tires, flowerpots, rain gutters, and junk yards which are some in particular. When it comes onto the impact in the economy, these species aren’t friendly. The Asian tiger mosquito are vicious biters that feed primarily during the morning into the evenly. They have a broad host range including humans and various animals. The tiger mosquito is a very efficient vector of a …show more content…
Methods were provided for the communities to take into consideration in stopping the invasion. Some ways of reducing their breeding grounds are by pick up all beverage containers and cups, replace water in birdbaths twice a week, check tarps on boats or other equipment/items that collect water, and fix dripping outdoor faucets (“Controlling Mosquitoes”). There also ways in killing the mosquitos which includes hand held fogging devices using a pyrethroid insecticide can be purchased from hardware stores, burning mosquito coils, usually containing pyrethrin, and by using Pyrethrin aerosols that will kill mosquitoes in the house (“Controlling Mosquitoes”). For these simple ideas, the population rate has gone down