Hoarding rainwater could "dramatically" expand range of dengue-fever mosquito
27 Jan 09
Dr Michael Kearney of the Department of Zoology, University of Melbourne and Professor Ary Hoffmann from CESAR, Bio21 Institute and the University of Melbourne have developed a new model to predict the impact of climate change on the dengue fever-carrying mosquito Aedes aegypti in Australia - information that could help limit its spread.
According to the study, published in the new issue of the British Ecological Society's journal Functional Ecology, climate change and evolutionary change could act together to accelerate and expand the mosquito's range. But human behaviour - in the form of storing water to cope with climate change - is likely to have an even greater impact.
Read the University of Melbourne Media Release 27 January 2009.