iNaturalist community observations provide valuable data on human-mosquito encounters

Abstract

Mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) and the pathogens they transmit represent a threat to human and animal health. Low-cost and effective surveillance methods are necessary to enable sustainable monitoring of mosquito distributions, diversity, and human interactions. This study examined the use of iNaturalist, an online, community-populated biodiversity recording database, for passive mosquito surveillance in the United Kingdom (UK) and Ireland, countries under threat from the introduction of invasive mosquitoes and emerging mosquito-borne diseases. The Mozzie Monitors UK & Ireland iNaturalist project was established to collate mosquito observations in these countries. Data were compared with existing long-term mosquito UK datasets to assess representativeness of seasonal and distribution trends in citizen scientist-recorded observations. The project collected 738 observations with the majority recorded 2020-2022. Records were primarily associated with urban areas, with the most common species Culex pipiens and Culiseta annulata significantly more likely to be observed in urban areas than other species. Analysis of images uploaded to the iNaturalist project also provided insights into human-biting behavior. Our analyses indicate that iNaturalist provides species composition, seasonal occurrence, and distribution figures consistent with existing datasets and is therefore a useful surveillance tool for recording information on human interactions with mosquitoes and monitoring species of concern.