Where is climate change making mosquitoes grow faster?

Wednesday, September 16, 2015, 1:23 PM - Mosquitoes may be winged pests and disease carriers to many, but you can at least be assured cold weather will keep them at bay.

That may be so, but temperatures rise eventually, even in the Arctic where there are, in fact, mosquitoes. And they've been rising so steadily, a new study says the region is in for a mosquito boom for which it is not prepared.

Researchers at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire say if Arctic temperatures rise by 2^oC, mosquitoes will be 50 per cent more likely to survive to adulthood.

Not only that, field work at a site in Greenland suggested the mosquitoes emerge two weeks earlier than average from the shallow springtime ponds that are their larval homes.

"The faster they go through these life stages, the better off they are,” Culler told National Geographic. "If you’re only exposed for 20 days instead of 24, that’s good for you. That’s four days you don’t have to worry about being eaten."

Other insects that prey on mosquito larvae are also on the rise, but not enough to check the mosquitoes' numbers. And right on the menu is any warm-blooded mammal they can sink their proboscises into.

"There aren’t a lot of animals for them to eat in the Arctic, so when they finally find one, they are ferocious. They are relentless. They do not stop. They just keep going after you," she told National Geographic.

Credit: Lauren Culler.

The researchers single out caribou as most at risk from increased numbers, as the insects' earlier emergence is more in line with the calving season, when young caribou are most vulnerable. That could have a major impact on wild caribou, as well as reindeer, in places like Scandinavia and Russia.

Though the researchers don't mention Canada specifically, the researchers say the climate model they developed to study mosquito growth "can be generalized to any ecosystem where survival depends on sensitivities to changing temperatures."

In Canada, the range of most species of Caribou has moved further to the north due to human activity and habitat loss. Caribou in the Atlantic-Gaspesie area are listed as endangered, while they are considered threatened in southern mountain and boreal areas.

The study was published in the latest issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

SOURCE: AAAS | National Geographic | Parks Canada

WATCH BELOW: Keep mosquitoes away with this one trick