Fall 2008

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Monitoring Mosquito Diseases

Lyric Bartholomay manages ISU's Medical Entomology Lab, which monitors disease-carrying species.

Lyric Bartholomay may be the only person you know who likes mosquitoes.

The Iowa State University Medical Entomology Lab, which she manages, is the central location for monitoring disease-carrying mosquitoes in Iowa. Only a few species of Iowa mosquito carry diseases, but those diseases can be devastating to human and animal health.

During the summer mosquitoes are trapped, counted and sorted from locations across Iowa. The mosquitoes are then sent to the Iowa Department of Health and tested for diseases like West Nile virus. Heavy rains that hit the Midwest this spring provided ample habitat for Iowa mosquitoes. Bartholomay said that during June, mosquito traps in the Ames area brought in 20 times more mosquitoes than last year.

"We send reports to state health agencies and let them know how many nuisance or vector (disease carrying) species are out there, which gives them an idea of when to implement mosquito control measures, or to warn the public of West Nile virus activity in their areas," says Bartholomay, assistant professor of entomology.

Wayne Rowley, professor emeritus of entomology, began monitoring mosquitoes in Iowa in 1968 after a child in Wisconsin died of a mosquito-borne illness. The program has readily accommodated monitoring of other mosquito-borne threats, most recently West Nile virus. Over the years, countless ISU undergraduate and graduate students have contributed to sorting and identifying the 53 different species of Iowa mosquitoes.

During the off-season, Bartholomay turns the tables on disease-carrying mosquitoes and ticks - exposing them to various pathogens to see how their immune systems cope with infection. She also leads a class of undergraduate students through virtual world tours of disease-carrying insects, from sand flies infesting Baghdad to mosquito swarms in Africa. She hopes students take away the same enthusiasm she has for discovering and understanding the relationship between people, pathogens, insect pests and public health.