Mosquitoes_of_French_Guiana

Study Extent

Study sites were located throughout French Guiana.

Sampling

The following techniques were used; however, not all techniques were used at every collecting site and the sampling design may not have been similar between these sites. Immature container mosquitoes were collected by extracting plant-held water using a great variety of sucking devices in order to fit the great variety of plant structures and water volumes. On some occasions, natural and artificial ovitraps were used, including bamboo stumps and artificial bromeliads installed at ground or canopy level. Immature mosquitoes from larger bodies of water were collected by using a kick net. Adult mosquitoes were attracted in the field by human bait and captured with a butterfly net or with a tube when they alighted.

Quality Control

GPS coordinates were obtained using a GPSmap 60CSx device or equivalent. Considering different sources of GPS errors (such as ionosphere delay and signal multipath), we estimate the accuracy of the coordinates to be around 30 meters at a 95% confidence level.

Method steps

1. Whenever possible, samples were brought back alive to the laboratory. Immature mosquitoes were individually reared in 2 mL Eppendorf tubes and placed in a climatic chamber at 28°C to obtain adults. When a sufficient number of adults was obtained, some of them were stored in individual tubes containing 95% ethanol. Fourth instar and pupal skins were also sorted and stored in individual tubes containing 70% ethanol. Laboratory-reared adults and adults issued from field capture were killed by freezing. Three legs from the right side of each specimen were then carefully dissected and kept in a separate vial containing 95% ethanol and stored at -20°C for further molecular investigations. Adults were mounted on their right side on a pin point attached to a No. 3 stainless steel insect pin and stored in entomological boxes. Specimen codes are based on the name of the collection followed by a unique serial number as proposed by Gaffigan and Pecor (1997). The same code was used for all of the biological material issued from the same specimen. When it was impossible to bring live samples back to the laboratory and rearing was also not possible, specimens were stored directly in the field in 95% ethanol. Selected specimens were photographed using a Leica DFC450 camera mounted on a Leica MZ16 macroscope under a light dome simulating natural light. Images were Z-staked using the Leica LAS Z-staking module. Montage pictures and collecting information for each specimen are stored in an online Voseq database (Peña and Malm 2012) managed by the EDB laboratory and viewable through the Guyanensis GIS web platform at http://guyanensis.ups-tlse.fr, through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) at .http://www.gbif.org/dataset/5a8aa2ad-261c-4f61-a98e-26dd752fe1c5 or alternatively through the local Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT) at http://130.120.204.55:8080/ipt/resource.do?r=mosquitoes_of_french_guiana. Specimens are initially curated at the Ecofog laboratory by Stanislas Talaga and can be deposited in museums for further taxonomic study.

This database concerns all mosquito species inhabiting French Guiana. Most specimens were identified to the species level or at least to the genus level by the first author. Until now, the database was mostly filled with data from studies conducted on mosquitoes breeding in phytotelmata, which explains why the Sabethini are particularly well represented in the current dataset (Fig. 1). Therefore, some tribes like the Anophelini, Culicini and Mansoniini are highly under represented and the tribes Aedeomyiini and Uranotaeniini are not at all represented (Fig. 1). The dataset includes occurrences of twelve species recently recorded in French Guiana (Talaga et al. 2015), namely: Onirion sp. cf Harbach and Peyton (2000), Sabethes (Peytonulus) hadrognathus Harbach, Sa. (Pey.) paradoxus Harbach, Sa. (Pey.) soperi Lane and Cerqueira, Sa. (Sabethinus) idiogenes Harbach, Sa. (Sabethes) quasicyaneus Peryassú, Runchomyia (Ctenogoeldia) magna (Theobald), Wyeomyia (Caenomyiella) sp. cf Harbach and Peyton (1990), Wy. (Dendromyia) ypsipola Dyar, Wy. (Hystatomyia) lamellata (Bonne-Wepster and Bonne), Wy. (Miamyia) oblita (Lutz), and Toxorhynchites (Lynchiella) guadeloupensis (Dyar and Knab).

1. Animalia
   rank: kingdom
2. Arthropoda
   rank: phylum
3. Insecta
   rank: class
4. Diptera
   rank: order
5. Culicidae
   rank: family
6. Anophelinae
   rank: subfamily
7. Culicinae
   rank: subfamily
8. Aediomyiini
   rank: tribe
9. Aedini
   rank: tribe
10. Culicini
    rank: tribe
11. Mansoniini
    rank: tribe
12. Orthopodomyiini
    rank: tribe
13. Sabethini
    rank: tribe
14. Toxorhynchitini
    rank: tribe
15. Uranotaeniini
    rank: tribe

The sampling area is delimited by the current administrative boundaries of the territory of French Guiana (Fig. 2). To the East, the Oyapock River delimits the border with Brazil. To the West, the Maroni River delimits the border with Suriname. The territory’s borders have not been constant throughout history and a large portion of northern Brazil was disputed between France and Brazil during the 19th century. As a result, the type locality of Counani, French Guiana from where the nomen dubium Culex americanus Neveu-Lemaire 1902 was described (Belkin et al. 1971) is currently in Brazil. Even though French Guiana is a French overseas region, all occurrences have been recorded under the country "French Guiana" to comply with the ISO 3166-1 standard.