Breeding sites of Culicoides midges in KwaZulu-Natal

Abstract

Locating breeding sites of disease vectors is an essential part of their control and the subsequent control of the diseases that they transmit. African Horse Sickness (AHS) is vectored by Culicoides midges and, while information is available on their breeding sites, not much data is available in KwaZulu-Natal
(KZN). Tent traps were made and placed at 90 locations in the KZN midlands. Catch numbers were correlated to site properties using the generalised linear modelling procedure on untransformed data with a negative binomial distribution and a log link function. Sites with increasing ground moisture, increasing incident radiation and increasing wetness duration were found to positively increase the number of midges collected from them. Possible applications of the results are discussed.

Keywords: Culicoides, African Horse sickness, control, breeding sites