Acta Tropica 119 (2011) 76–83 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Acta Tropica jo ur nal homep age : www.elsevier.com/locate /actatropica Community structure of ground-water breeding mosquitoes driven by land use in a temperate wetland of Argentina Cardo María Victoria ∗ , Vezzani Darío, Carbajo Aníbal Eduardo Unidad de Ecología de Reservorios y Vectores de Parásitos, Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 3 March 2011 Received in revised form 14 April 2011 Accepted 23 April 2011 Available online 30 April 2011 Keywords: Culicidae Richness Culex Ochlerotatus Anthropic intervention Delta of Paraná River a b s t r a c t Wetlands have traditionally been associated with harbouring mosquitoes, but the effect of the land use on their communities has not been thoroughly studied. We characterized the ground-water habitat avail- ability and mosquito species richness and composition during a year-round survey in the predominant land uses (domestic areas, Salicaceae plantations, secondary forests and Scirpus giganteus marshes) of the Paraná Lower Delta, Argentina. Each land use presented a characteristically different number, com- position, and diversity of ground-water habitats, and harboured mosquitoes throughout the year. Nearly half of the 824 habitats examined, consisting of 10 types, were positive for immatures. We identified 23 species from 7 genera, with Culex and Ochlerotatus species accounting for 81.7% of all samples. Species richness was significantly lower in marshes than in the other land uses. Some species such as Culex dolosus s.l. and Ochlerotatus crinifer exhibited no habitat-type restrictions, while Uranotaenia nataliae and Manso- nia indubitans presented specific habitat requirements. Our results strongly suggest that land use within temperate wetlands drives species richness and composition of ground-water mosquito communities through larval habitat availability. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Wetland ecosystems fulfill critical ecological roles by provid- ing habitat for resident and migratory organisms, buffering against floods and precipitating sediment from streams, among other ser- vices (Mercer et al., 2005). However, they also provide highly suitable habitat for mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae), which are insects of major public health concern for their role as vectors of dis- eases and for their well-known nuisance. Although all wetlands are associated with culicids annoyance, mosquitoes show both spatial and temporal variation and an uneven distribution within the envi- ronment (Schäfer et al., 2008). This variation may be partially due to the occurrence of different land uses within a wetland. The marked influence of land cover types in the distribution and abundance of anopheline larval habitats, which has been thoroughly studied due Abbreviations: SI, sampling site; LU, land use; SP, sampling period; GWH, ground-water habitat; GLMM, generalized linear mixed model; prWAT, probabil- ity of a randomly thrown quadrat to contain a GWH; prSAM, probability of a GWH to be an effective larval habitat; AIC, Akaike’s information criterion. ∗ Corresponding author at: Dto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Ciudad Universitaria, Pabellón 2, 4 piso, (C1428EHA) Buenos Aires, Argentina. Tel.: +54 11 4576 3300x364; fax: +54 11 4576 3354. E-mail addresses: victoriacardo@ege.fcen.uba.ar, victoriacardo@hotmail.com (M.V. Cardo). to their relevance as malaria vectors, has been repeatedly suggested (e.g. Mushinzimana et al., 2006; Munga et al., 2009; Mutuku et al., 2009). There are considerable direct and indirect impacts of human land use decisions on mosquitoes and the diseases they transmit; specific land use changes such as deforestation can lead to environ- mental change conducive to mosquito success (Dale and Knight, 2008). Wetlands have long been subjected to an intense anthropic management leading to high fragmentation of the landscape along with juxtaposition of natural and modified environments (Kalesnik et al., 2008). The Delta of the Paraná River is one of the main wetland systems in South America, and during the past decades its islands have been subjected to changes in land use and plant cover, resulting in a complex mosaic of natural and human-made land-cover types (Kandus et al., 1999). Approximately half of its extension is affected by human activities, mainly by the estab- lishment of Salicaceae plantations (willow, Salix spp. and poplar, Populus spp.) and recreation areas. Current knowledge of mosquito fauna of the Lower Delta of the Paraná River is mainly restricted to the pioneering works of Prosen et al. (1960) and García and Casal (1965). Recently, anthropophilic mosquito species were identified and some issues related with their activity patterns were studied, but only in one isolated island of the downstream portion of the Lower Delta (Loetti et al., 2007). The study tested the association of land use with mosquito communities and their habitats in wetland environments. To 0001-706X/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.actatropica.2011.04.011