PRIMARY RESEARCH PAPER Mosquito larvae consumption in turbid waters: the role of the type of turbidity and the larval stage in native and invasive fish Oriol Cano-Rocabayera . Sergi Vargas-Amengual . Carles Aranda . Adolfo de Sostoa . Alberto Maceda-Veiga Received: 30 May 2019 / Revised: 28 January 2020 / Accepted: 30 January 2020 Ó Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 Abstract Agricultural runoff and biological inva- sions alter native species interactions with implica- tions for the management of pests. Here, we used live larvae of common house mosquito Culex pipiens to test the efficiencies of the invasive fish Gambusia holbrooki and the IUCN endangered fish Aphanius iberus to manage mosquitoes at three ecologically relevant concentrations of algae and clay. Both species reduced mosquito abundance in aquaria and outdoor mesocosms though A. iberus reduced it at a slower pace. However, G. holbrooki preferentially captured larger larvae at all fish sizes, whereas smaller individuals of A. iberus captured higher number of smaller larvae. Algal turbidity, but not clay, reduced the efficiency of both species, probably because of an adaptation to inorganic turbidity. Fish efficiency was not reduced in mesocosms where fish captured mosquito larvae interacting with natural invertebrate assemblages. Managers should maintain algal turbid- ity at \ 10 FTU based on the visual detection threshold for both species. Our study shows that algal turbidity threatens the potential of waterbodies to naturally control mosquitoes and discusses why the faster foraging rates of alien species such as G. holbrooki should not be used to justify more introductions. Keywords Aphanius Á Gambusia Á Pest control Á Species interactions Á Threatened fish Á Water turbidity Introduction Mosquito-borne diseases are spreading at unprece- dented rates and scales, with recent outbreaks of malaria, dengue, chikungunya and Zika in developing countries (Becker et al., 2010; Hotez, 2016; WHO, 2018). Although the causes of the spread of diseases are often uncertain, some species of mosquitoes breed in turbid water bodies due to eutrophication and runoff (Verhoeven et al., 2006; Becker et al., 2010). The Handling editor: Katya E. Kovalenko Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-020-04195-0) con- tains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. O. Cano-Rocabayera (&) Á S. Vargas-Amengual Á A. de Sostoa Á A. Maceda-Veiga Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences-Institute of Research in Biodiversity (IRBio-UB), University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain e-mail: canorocabayera@gmail.com C. Aranda Mosquito Control Service of Baix Llobregat Council, el Prat de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain A. Maceda-Veiga Department of Integrative Ecology, Estacio ´n Biolo ´gica de Don ˜ana-CSIC, Seville, Spain 123 Hydrobiologia https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-020-04195-0