Methods of Age-grading Adults and Estimation of Adult Survival Rates

Abstract

Ability to determine the age structure and survival rate of female mosquitoes is of paramount ecological importance because longevity affects net raproduction rates and dispersal distances, and is often needed in analysing data from mark--recapture experiments, etc. A critical analysis of the age composition of a population is also crucial in epidemiological studies (Dye 1984a, 1992; Garrett-Jones 1970; Macdonald 1952, 1957; Molineaux and Gramiccia 1980; Molineaux et al. 1978; Nájera 1974), and knowledge of survival rates can help in assessing the impact of control measures (Molineaux et al. 1976, 1979).