Publications by authors named "Allison T Parker"

Discarded vehicle tires can be found in habitats spanning a human land-use gradient from rural to urban and create an ideal artificial container habitat for mosquito larval development. The purpose of this study was to examine mosquito species composition in discarded vehicle tires in rural and urban habitats. Discarded tires were placed at 6 rural and 6 urban forested sites and sampled weekly for juvenile mosquitoes.

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Females of container-breeding mosquito species use visual and chemical cues to determine suitable habitats to oviposit their eggs. Female Culex mosquitoes oviposit single egg rafts containing hundreds of eggs on the surface of water in container habitats. In this project, the effects of water volume and nutrient concentration were studied using three semi-controlled field assays to determine the role these parameters play on female Culex mosquito oviposition preference.

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Larvae of container-breeding mosquitoes develop in a wide range of container habitats found in residential neighborhoods. Different mosquito species may exhibit preference for different container types and sizes. Due to phenological differences, species composition in container habitats may change over time.

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Roof gutters on houses that have become inundated with leaf litter and cannot drain properly are an often-overlooked man-made container habitat that is suitable for mosquito larval development. In order to reduce the amount of leaf litter debris in gutters, many homeowners install debris screens, commonly referred to as "gutter guards," on their roof gutters, but no study has examined the effect of gutter guards on mosquito production. The objective of this research was to determine the extent to which different types of gutter guards affect mosquito colonization and abundance of juvenile mosquitoes in gutter habitats.

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Ticks use a variety of chemical cues to locate hosts, the main cue being carbon dioxide, which is exhaled by hosts. This study sought to experimentally determine whether ticks exhibit preference among human hosts based on host sex, as the chemical components of human male and female breath have been shown to differ. We focused on the lone star tick, Amblyomma americanum, due to its importance as a disease vector in the United States and its active host-seeking behavior.

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Aedes aegypti L. and Aedes albopictus Skuse co-occur in a variety of water-filled containers where they compete for resources. Larvae of Ae.

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Invasive mosquito species can increase the transmission risk of native mosquito-borne diseases by acting as novel vectors. In this study, we examined the susceptibility of three exotic invasive mosquito species Aedes aegypti (L.), Ae.

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