Life History Trait |
Range Explored (RH%) |
Effect of RH |
Mosquito Species |
References |
Longevity/Survival/ Desiccation tolerance |
5 - 100 |
Increased RH
significantly increased female longevity; tendency to survive longest at
low temp - high humidity combinations and females to survive longer than
males |
Anopheles gambiae, An. stephensi, An. subpictus, An.
culicifacies, An. pharoensis, An. arabiensis, An. funestus, Ae. aegypti,
Ae. albopictus, Ae. togoi, Ae. paullusi, Culex pipiens, Eretmapodites
chrysogaster |
(Mayne 1930; Lewis 1933; Lomax 1968; Hylton 1969;
Gaaboub et al. 1971; Mogi et al. 1996; Bayoh 2001; Gray &
Bradley 2005; Reiskind & Lounibos 2009; Costa et al. 2010;
Urbanski et al. 2010; Canyon et al. 2013; Lyons et
al. 2014; Alto et al. 2015; Lega et al. 2017; Schmidt
et al. 2018) |
Egg production |
34 - 95 |
Increased RH increased egg production;
significantly lower numbers of eggs and delayed oviposition in dry
conditions |
An. pharoensis, Ae. aegypti, Ae. taeniorhynchus, Ae.
vexans, Ae. trivittatus |
(Mcgaughey & Knight 1967; Gaaboub et
al. 1971; Canyon et al. 1999, 2013; Costa et al. 2010;
Lega et al. 2017) |
Activity/Behaviour |
10-30, up to 100 |
Mosquito activity increases with
increasing relative humidity to a point (~90%) and then
precipitously declines, also has a general lower limit at
~40%. |
An. quadrimaculatus, An. earlei, An.
walkeri, An. crucians, Ae. aegypti, Ae. sollicitans, Ae. cantator, Ae.
vexans, Ae. trivittatus, Ae. canadensis, Ae. communis, Ae. sticticus,
Ae. taeniorhynchus, Ae. vigilax, Cx. pipiens, Cx. fatigans, Cx.
restuans, Cx. nigripalpus, Cx. sitiens, Coquillettidia perturbans,
Psorophora confinnis, Uranotaenia sapphirina |
(Rudolfs 1923, 1925;
Thomson 1938; Platt et al. 1957, 1958; Wright & Knight 1966;
Rowley & Graham 1968; Dow & Gerrish 1970; Provost 1973; Bidlingmayer
1974, 1985; Grimstad & DeFoliart 1975; Witter et al. 2012; Hagan
et al. 2018; Johnson et al. 2020) |
Plasmodium infection |
39 - 100 |
Mixed or unclear effects of
humidity |
An. stephensi, An. subpictus, An. culicifacies, An.
fuliginosus, Cx quinquefasciatus, Cx. fatigans |
(Mayne 1930; Knowles
& Basu 1943) |
Egg-hatching |
Real-world RH data; 0-100 |
Adding RH data to a
predictive model focused on egg hatching made the model more accurate.
Egg hatching worse at lower humidities |
Ae. aegypti |
(Bar-Zeev
1957; Albernaz et al. 2009; Lega et al.
2017) |
Microclimate preference upon emergence |
75, 86 |
Newly emerged adults
with no access to water or sugar preferred cooler, more humid refugia. |
An. gambiae, An. stephensi, Ae. aegypti, and Cx. pipiens |
(Kessler & Guerin 2008) |