Mosquitoes Matter: Untangling Myths & Mastering Management

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Guest Information

To explore the topic of mosquitoes, we are joined today by Aaron Anderson. Aaron is a pesticide program specialist at Xerces and works with communities across the country, as well as Xerces staff, to reduce pesticide use in residential landscapes, including promoting non-pesticide approaches to landscape care and pollinator-friendly gardening practices.

Show Notes & Links

In this episode we dive into mosquitoes: their value, the myths that surround them, and how to manage them through a conservation lens. We provide resources and tips on how to coexist with these little creatures.

• Effective mosquito management resources
• How to Help Your Community Create an Effective Mosquito Management Plan fact sheet

Transcript

Rachel: Welcome to bug banter with the Xerces society where we explore the world of invertebrates and how to help these extraordinary animals. If you want to support our work go to xerces.org/give.

Matthew: Hi, I'm Matthew Shepherd in Portland, Oregon.

Rachel: And I'm Rachel Dunham in Missoula, Montana.

Matthew: I believe it was Jimmie Durante who first came up with the rhyme, “spring is sprung, the grass is riz; I wonder where them boidies is?” Of course, spring also means the return of insects — bees, butterflies, dragonflies, and yes, mosquitoes — and here at the Xerces Society we start getting questions about what to do about these pesky critters. Does spraying help? Does spraying harm other insects? What are the alternatives and do they work? 

Matthew: To explore the topic of mosquitoes, we are joined today by Aaron Anderson. Aaron is a pesticide program specialist at Xerces and works with communities across the country, as well as Xerces staff, to reduce pesticide use in residential landscapes, including promoting non-pesticide approaches to landscape care and pollinator-friendly gardening practices.

Matthew: Welcome, Aaron!

Aaron: Hi Rachel and Matthew, I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much for having me to talk about mosquitoes.

Rachel: We're happy to have you. Thanks for joining us. So, before we dive into the topic of mosquito control, let's talk about mosquitoes. We may consider them a pest, but they do have a wider presence in our environment and are eaten by other wildlife and can even be pollinators.

Rachel: Is that true, Aaron? Can you tell us a little bit about mosquitoes?

Aaron: Yeah, totally, that's exactly true. So, mosquitoes are a type of fly and they're actually a pretty diverse group of insects. I think there's an estimated about 3,500 species of mosquitoes worldwide and there's about 176 species that are found in North America and I think that number is closer to 200 if you include outlying US territories.

Aaron: And yeah, despite having kind of a bad reputation, mosquitoes do play a role in ecosystems and in the food chain, you know, so they lay their eggs in water where the larva and pupa develop. And as a quick aside, they can complete their developmental cycle in about 8 to 10 days and one female can lay hundreds of eggs and because of that this is why, you know, message about eliminating standing water as you know a really effective way to reduce mosquitoes near a yard.

Aaron: But because of this you know there's so many eggs laid in larva they can serve as food for all sorts of aquatic organisms from fish to dragonflies, larvae, and the adults are consumed by all sorts of predators too; other insects, bats, birds. I guess how important mosquitoes are to these predators isn't always super well known because they're so small they're probably more of a supplementary part of the diet for a lot of these birds and bats.

Aaron:  But yeah, lots of different species will eat mosquitoes. And like you said, Rachel, because they visit flowers and they can actually serve as pollinators, which is probably a little bit surprising to some people, I know it was surprising to me when I first learned that. And yeah, I think in particular those mosquitoes that are pretty important pollinators for specific orchids, eating nectar from the floral spur of orchids and then, you know, kind of running into the, pollinating structures.

Rachel: So, kind of their basic biology, why do they suck blood?

Aaron: That's a great question. So adult mosquitoes both male and female, they actually only eat nectar to survive themselves. Maybe some sap from plants, sugary things for energy, which is again when they can serve as pollinators. So, only female mosquitoes actually feed on blood and they need the proteins from a blood meal to end up producing their eggs.

Aaron: And something I think that's important to mention is that not all mosquitoes actually feed on humans. Some don't even suck blood, and those that do tend to prefer certain types of hosts from reptiles to birds to mammals like us.

Aaron: So even out of the species that do feed on blood, only a subset feed on mammals.
And I think the CDC says only 12 species out of those 200 species that are found in the US actually vector or transmit diseases that impact us.

Aaron: So, it's not that many mosquitoes out in the grand scheme of things that we have to be concerned about.

Matthew: Yeah, no, that's great. I mean, so often we just kind of smush all the insects together into one group and are just not aware of everything else that they're doing.

Matthew: So, it makes you think, oh, that one on my arm. It's a really valuable thing to have around. But anyway, I mean, we're mostly here because we get all of these questions about pesticides and mosquito control and so on.

Matthew: So, can you give us a quick kind of pesticide 101? I mean, what is a pesticide and do they have a particular purpose?

Aaron: Yeah, that's a great question, Matthew. So, a pesticide is, pesticides are kind of a catch-all term for any substance that's designed to, or used to kill a living organism. So, common categories are; insecticides, which are designed or used to kill insects. Herbicides, used to kill plants. Fungicides, which are used to kill fungi.

Aaron: There are way more categories than that, but those are kind of the main 3 we end up talking about most here at Xerces. Insecticides are obviously concerning because they're designed to kill insects, but herbicides and fungicides can also be concerning because they have indirect and direct impacts on invertebrates as well.

Rachel: So, I assume that the chemicals used to kill mosquitoes are insecticides.

Aaron: Yes, that's correct.

Rachel: Yeah, and these are applied both in small and larger scales. Can you give us an idea? Cause I know some folks say they have chemical companies come to their door and they have backpack sprayers or people do it themselves but then there's municipalities that do sort of this mass mosquito spraying.

Rachel: Can you sort of give us an overview of how a mosquito is managed on both the small and the large scale?

Aaron: Yeah, that's a great question. And it can kind of vary across the country. So, you know, across the country there are these governmental organizations or quasi-governmental organizations some that are, you know, that coordinate these mosquito sprays for adults, what's called adulticiding in our residential areas.

Aaron: So, these are often called vector control districts or municipal control districts. And often these operate at the county level, but sprays can also be coordinated by individual cities or towns as well. And these sprays are usually, you know, applied via a truck that fogs the area with what's called an ultra-low volume spray that uses these really small droplets to let the pesticide kind of spread and linger in the air.

Aaron: And then sometimes, these sprays are even performed via plane to cover larger areas. And the chemicals they use are typically quite toxic. Broad spectrum is what we call them, which means they kill a lot of different insects, not just mosquitoes.

Aaron: And the groups used most frequently are pyrethroids as well as a few organophosphates, which are pretty nasty chemicals. And I do want to note that these vector control districts will often use what's called larvicides to treat waterways to kill larval mosquitoes, but this isn't what people normally think of when they think about mosquito spraying.

Aaron: But then, like you were mentioning, Rachel, there's also private companies that come door to door and provide these services just on a yard-type basis. And these companies typically use backpack sprayers or backpack foggers and they walk around your yard and they spray the vegetation where insects are kind of hanging out.

Aaron: Adult mosquitoes often roost in vegetation to take shelter during the day, but unfortunately that's where also, you know, other, other insects like to spend time either herbivores, predators, parasitoids, pollinators visiting flowers, or even less daytime active species like fireflies will kind of roost in vegetation in your yard as well.

Aaron: So, these sprays will unfortunately also impact them. And these companies also tend to use pyrethroids or a combination of pyrethroids. And again, they're really highly toxic to a broad suite of different invertebrates and not just mosquitoes.

Aaron: And I guess when you were talking about spraying, I should also note that spraying for adult mosquitoes is very much a short-term kind of band-aid solution. As I mentioned, mosquitoes reproduce really quickly. So even if a yard is sprayed, new ones will just emerge pretty much immediately.

Aaron: Or since they can file, they will fly in from surrounding natural areas or your neighbor's yard and, you know, the populations of mosquitoes in your yard will just, you know, kind of pop right back up.

Matthew: You mentioned earlier about this very quick reproduction and the numbers and also how controlling source was important. I know you were talking about spraying and fogging and vegetation, but that doesn't seem like a very effective method, right?

Aaron: Yeah, exactly. So, trying to control the, you know, larval stage of the mosquitoes before the population can really explode is a much more effective way to control mosquitoes as opposed to trying to kill the adults. Especially again, yeah, like you were mentioning, Matthew, when they can reproduce so quickly and in such high numbers.

Matthew: Yeah, so. But where might they be reproducing? I mean, if someone comes to treat your yard, rather than fogging everything, but what should they focus on?

Aaron: So that's a great question. So, mosquitoes can reproduce anywhere they're standing water. So, they need stagnant standing water to reproduce. Moving water isn't, isn't, you know, a good habitat for them.

Aaron: Yeah, when you think about your yard, it could be all sorts of places, you know, a flower pulp that's full of some rainwater, a bird bath, a dog, or a cat, water bowl, you know, even a crumpled tarp where rain has pooled.

Aaron: There’re all sorts of places where standing water can kind of hide. And those are the areas that you really want to focus on. Just making sure that water can't be there, you know. 

Aaron: You want to go and make sure your gutters aren't clogged, so there's no source of standing water there. And just being really vigilant because mosquitoes only need the size of water in a bottle cap to reproduce and only I think about an inch or a half inch deep so it's not very much water that, you know, a female mosquito who's laying her eggs can really exploit and take advantage of.

Matthew: Now that's a really small puddle, isn't it? Yeah.

Aaron: It is, isn't it? You know, I walk around my yard and I look sometimes and I'm like, “Oh gosh, mosquito habitat, mosquito habitat, dump the water!”

Matthew: Okay. I know we've talked a lot about, about pesticides and insecticides. I mean, can you give us a sense of how prevalent pesticides are in our neighborhoods? And do you know in general how much of that is for managing mosquitoes? I mean, I imagine as well it might vary from region to region.

Aaron: Yeah, that is a really great question and unfortunately, it's really hard to say. You know, I think the answer, like you kind of were mentioning, Matthew, depends on the neighborhood, right?

Aaron: There are certainly neighborhoods where we would assume the prevalence of pesticides is really high, you know, especially if there's a lot of manicured lawns that are being treated with, say, granular insecticides to treat grubs. You know, these tend to be really long-lived systemic insecticides. There might be herbicides to kill weeds or weed-and-feed products.

Aaron: Then, if you stack mosquito treatments on top of that, you can really imagine and there's a pretty high toxic load in some of these landscapes. But then there are, you know, other neighborhoods where perhaps the social norms are different. There is less use of pesticides where yards might be, largely serving as habitat for wildlife or at the very least are kind of neutral.

Aaron: But the answer is by and large we don't have a great sense of what the average amount of these residues is in yards across the country, which is actually why our team here at Xerces has been engaging in some on the ground research to try to begin to get a sense of what the pesticide risks to invertebrates are in some of these residential landscapes.

Rachel: So, speaking of studies, you've been working on a study to investigate the risk to pollinators from mosquito spraying. Can you tell us a little bit about how you're doing that and do you have any results that can be shared?

Aaron: Yeah, I'd love to talk about this. So, this past summer in 2023 we conducted this study in three different states in Georgia, Decatur, in Massachusetts and in Iowa, partnering with Good Neighbor Iowa, to try to get a sense of what the risk to pollinators are from these backyard mosquito sprays because one of the questions that we get a lot from people is, “I'm creating pollinator habitat in my yard, but my next-door neighbor sprays for mosquitoes. How much of a risk is this to my pollinator habitat?”

Aaron: And unfortunately, we don't really have a great answer to that. We don't know how much pesticide residue gets deposited in a yard that's, you know, adjacent, or a house away, two houses away from sprays.

Aaron: So yeah, we really wanted to kind of get some on-the-ground research done to kind of be able to answer these questions. And we kind of were thinking about the best way to do this, and you know, there can be so much variation between yards. People have different plants and they have different distances between their plants and the neighbor's yard.

Aaron: And we realized that using these silicone bands would be the best way to look at this because these are being used more and more in toxicological studies, both for human toxicology, but then also in ecological studies just to kind of capture, you know, their kind of sentinel things you can put out and be like, hey, what is the pesticide residues that are being exposed in this area.

Aaron: So, we were able to get volunteers through Bee City USA, you know, an arm of Xerces, in Decatur. They're a really rock star, Bee City USA affiliate. So we've got volunteers there who either actively have their yard sprayed for mosquitoes or whose next-door neighbors spray for mosquitoes.

Aaron: We also had volunteers in Massachusetts. My colleague on the pesticide team, Rosemary Malfi, has an extensive network in Massachusetts, so she was able to leverage some of those relationships to get volunteers and then as I mentioned in Iowa we partnered with Good Neighbor Iowa.

Aaron: So yeah, all of these people were kind enough to put bands out in their yards when a mosquito spray was going to happen. They followed our sampling protocol, packaged everything up, and then stored them in their freezer until we shipped them to the lab where these bands were analyzed and we actually, I just got the results back a week or so ago and we're still in the very preliminary stages of kind of analyzing them, but, there's already some really interesting looking patterns that we're kind of detecting.

Aaron: And, you know, what we can kind of say is, that, if you have your yard sprayed for mosquitoes, there are really high levels of pyrethroids that are deposited. And at levels that appear to be toxic not just to mosquitoes but also to bees, and other insects as well.

Aaron: And then it looks like neighboring yards are getting these residues, but at lower amounts. But we will have to do some more digging to kind of figure out what that means, kind of in a real-world sense to bees and butterflies and other beneficial insects.

Rachel: Interesting. Well, thanks to all the volunteers who are willing to be part of that study and I look forward to... I don't know if I look forward to the results as like a good thing because the results are going to be negative, but I think it gives us good education to talk to people about spraying for mosquitoes.

Rachel: There's sort of, I think, this idea that pesticides are selective, that you're only killing this like one insect and there's no impact on the other ones. So, I think this study really speaks to that. Thank you for explaining that.

Aaron: I think so too. I identify with what you were saying because I was so excited to get the results back in, and then was so excited initially when I saw you know the values in the spreadsheet, because I was like, "Yes it worked!" but then I was like, "Oh no, I don't want to see these values." But, you know, so.

Matthew: Yeah. I knew you were doing the research, but I didn't realize that some of the volunteers were having their yard sprayed.

Matthew: So, it'll also be interesting when you get the results back. Will any of those people change their practices or not?

Aaron: That's a great question. And yeah, that was something that, you know, initially when we were recruiting, I didn't expect to get people who actually sprayed their own yard, but then, you know, when it turned out that we did get a number of those volunteers, we were actually fairly excited because it's kind of good to know what is happening, you know, right here where the spraying's happening and then kind of working out from there.

Matthew: Yeah, because it's like ground zero. You now have data from that and then you can see what happens next door or down the block or whatever.

Aaron: Exactly. You know, there was one volunteer who was kind enough to ask her neighbor if she could put bands out in the neighbor's yard. And this volunteer had her yard sprayed. So, for one of these samples we have for the exact same spray, what happened in the yard that was sprayed as well as the next-door yard. So that was a really, really kind of, yeah, it's going to be interesting to kind of dig into the data.

Matthew: Yeah, no, that's awesome. I mean, I know some people get pesticide companies knocking on our door offering services. You know, they come to the door and they say, "Oh, we can spray, we can treat, you know, it's all eco-friendly."

Matthew: I mean, is it really eco-friendly? You know, I don't, it's one of those terms that gets so widely and so broadly used, but there isn't really a definite definition of them. I mean is it eco-friendly? Can we kill mosquitoes and not other insects? I, you know, I don't know.

Aaron: That's a great question, Matthew. And, something that we grapple with a lot is kind of “How do we combat this sometimes misleading messaging that some of these companies use to get customers?”

Aaron: And yeah, I often hear kind of two versions of this. One is about pyrethroids which I mentioned earlier which are the most common pesticide used to treat for mosquitoes at home by these companies and they're really similar to pyrethrum, which is a naturally occurring substance that's used as a pesticide that's derived from chrysanthemum flowers, which I should note is still quite toxic.

Aaron: So these pyrethroids are synthetic derivatives of pyrethrum, or synthetic versions, and sometimes that truth is stretched a bit and people will claim that their pesticides are natural or derived from flowers when they're still synthetic and lab-made and very toxic to both mosquitoes, as well as all these other insects in your yard.

Aaron: So that's one of those times where people will claim this is, you know, eco-friendly or natural when it's really not and like you were saying, Matthew, these pesticides don't selectively, only kill mosquitoes they kill everything else in your yard as well. 

Aaron: And I should note too, that some companies also offer these kind of essential oil sprays, which they claim are eco-friendly. You know, I've heard of, you know, like garlic oil, peppermint oil, oregano oil, things like that being used.

Aaron: And I've researched this quite a bit and I can't really find anything that shows that they're super effective and it seems like their value probably is more of being a repellent, though how long that repellency even lasts in a yard isn't really obvious. But these oils still do pose some level of toxicity to the larva of these other insects so they aren't risk free.

Aaron: And one thought with these sprays that also applies to conventional pesticides as well, is that these sprays have other components as well, what are called inert ingredients, and many of these haven't been tested so we don't really know what risk they pose to pollinators and other invertebrates.

Aaron: So, I think it's kind of important to circle back when we're talking about these sprays and note again that spraying for adults really isn't an effective long-term management strategy and using simple more effective management options that end up with, you know, you avoiding the need to spray for adult mosquitoes, even with the least toxic option, is really the way to go.

Matthew: I mean, we're putting this into someone's garden and you've already mentioned that you know, in your study, you had the bands picking up residues and measurements next door. But are there, I mean, are there much broader impacts of spraying? You also mentioned treating lawns or crops. What happens when it rains or you irrigate and I mean, do those wash away and are there like downstream impacts in creeks and ponds?

Aaron: That's such a great question, Matthew. And yeah, this is kind of taking a step back to thinking about pesticide use in general in these urban areas. You know, in these urban areas, pesticide use has wide-ranging impacts because pesticides don't just stay on site.

Aaron: They’ll often drift or they'll run off and impact other areas. Our urban and suburban landscapes have lots of hard surfaces, you know, so things like pavement, sidewalks, roads, buildings, even compacted lawns, function as these hard surfaces, which makes it really easy for pesticide applications to run off and then move off site, get into our waterways, where they're often quite toxic to aquatic invertebrates and fish and things like that.

Aaron: The USGS did sampling of urban streams all over the country, and they found, you know, huge numbers, in some cases, of different pesticides in these urban and suburban waterways. So yeah, like you were saying, there really are impacts not just in your yard, but, you know, pesticide use can really have ramifications on the broader landscape as well.

Matthew: Okay. Yeah, you threw in some initials there, USGS. For folks who don't know.

Aaron: Thank you. Sorry, the US Geological Survey. Thank you.

Matthew: Okay, thank you. I know it's too easy for us to just slip in because we know what you're talking about.

Aaron: It is. Thank you, for the reminder.

Matthew: But. Yeah, no, that's all right. I'm sure that another concern people have is whether there's health impacts on themselves or their kids or their pets. Do you know anything much about that? I realize that's moving beyond, kind of, insects and invertebrates which is what we work on but I was just wondering.

Aaron: Yeah, no, so it's hard to say because, you know, for mosquito sprays in general because pyrethroids are toxic, they have neurotoxicity, but at the levels that are being sprayed, I think it's you know, I don't feel qualified to say. I think, you know, talking to somebody who, you know, is a pesticide specialist who works and kind of more human, you know, pet impacts.

Aaron: But one of the things we are interested in with this study is to potentially once we publish it, you know, get the data into the hands of people who do kind of specialize more in that realm to kind of say, “Hey, you know, here's the study we performed. Can you do anything with this? Is there anything concerning here?”

Aaron: Because, you know, as a cat owner, I know that pyrethroids are really toxic to cats, and when I saw some of the levels, you know, something in the back of my mind was like, "Oh, if somebody has, you know, an outdoor cat or neighborhood cats and they walk through one of these yards, is there a level of concern to pets?"

Aaron: It's definitely something that, you know, for a wide range of different pesticides, there are certainly, you know, human health concerns. And I think, taking a big step back, is another reason to try to eliminate pesticide use in our urban suburban areas is because there certainly are potential human health impacts.

Aaron: It just varies so much, depending on the chemical and you know the amount that's applied. It's hard to make any kind of blanket statements.

Matthew: Yeah and maybe also one more reason to keep your cats inside.

Aaron: Definitely. Yeah. For the record, my cats are indoor cats. They look out the window. I wish they were outdoor cats, but.

Matthew: Yeah. Okay.

Rachel: That's definitely a rabbit hole we could go down. 

Rachel: But I think that's an important question because I think the majority of folks who listen this podcast care about bugs and want to learn more, but I think there are people out there that don't necessarily love bugs and it's finding that connection of like, well, how can we connect to people spraying pesticides that may not care about the pollinators in the yard, but they might care that their kids are running around in that grass and their dogs out there eating the grass after it's been sprayed.

Rachel: Yeah just trying to reduce pesticides anyway that we can and finding the negative impacts even beyond invertebrates.

Aaron: Yeah, and I should be clear, you know, there is a whole body of research looking at, you know, the impacts of pesticides on humans and, that is definitely a big field of research.

Aaron: It's just, when you're thinking about, If somebody comes in and sprays for mosquitoes in your backyard, what is that risk to you or your pets? I think that's the type of thing that you know, there isn't a great answer to, I don't think.

Rachel: Yeah, certainly in our food. With organic food, we think about it, definitely.

Aaron: Certainly, yeah.

Rachel: So, we've talked a lot about spraying for mosquitoes. What are the alternatives? Are there ways for us to reduce their populations without chemicals? You talked a lot about standing water.

Rachel: I started doing that in my yard this last year and it's helped actually quite a bit just looking for all the tiny little puddles. And looking to my neighbor's yard as well, maybe making some suggestions to that. But are there things that people can do to help reduce the number of mosquitoes without using chemicals? And is it something that maybe we can just learn to tolerate a little bit?

Aaron: Yeah, totally. So, luckily there are solutions and you know we've been talking about one of them. The most important one is just eliminating standing water. As we've been talking about, mosquitoes, they need standing water to reproduce. They need that still water, you know, again, only the size of a bottle cap. And the entire process of their development can only take 8 to 10 days.  So, standing water that's only been sitting around for just over a week can serve as mosquito habitat.

Aaron: You know, I really encourage all of the listeners to just look everywhere in their yard for places where water might pool. There's a lot of hidden unexpected places. You know, again, dumping water from buckets and trash cans, looking for those hidden flowerpots filled with rainwater, you know. Crumpled tarps, a canoe full of water, you know, things like that.

Aaron: And again, I mentioned it earlier but clogged gutters are a really sneaky one because you can't see them. It's easy for a gutter to get somewhat clogged and just have some pooled water standing there and you don't even know and it's a great source of mosquitoes. For kind of more intentional water sources like pet bowls and bird baths, just dumping and refilling those, you know, every 5 days or every week to prevent any mosquito larva from completing their life cycle. There's a really great tip.

Aaron: If you do have a permanent body of water, like a, you know, a small backyard pond, something like that, you can add a fountain, or waterfall, some, sort of little water feature just to kind of keep that water moving so the mosquitoes can't utilize it as a place to lay their eggs. You can even just have a little pump that keeps the water moving a little bit. 

Aaron: I will note that we encourage you, if you do choose to put a pump in, to add a little bit of protective screening since they can potentially pull in things that you want in your pond like dragonfly or damselfly nymphs and kill them in the pump. So put a little bit of screening on that.

Aaron: The other thing we talk about a lot is just kind of prevention. So, you know, you obviously want to be able to go out and enjoy your yard in the summer and simply wearing long sleeves when mosquitoes are active is a pretty effective way to do that. When you're sitting outside on like a deck or a patio, just putting out a fan that kind of is blowing on you is really effective.

Aaron: So, even though mosquitoes can fly a decent distance, they're really weak fliers, so they can't fly in even pretty light winds. So, just having that fan out will allow you to be able to enjoy your backyard without mosquitoes biting you.

Aaron: And another common-sense tip is just to make sure screens on your windows are intact. If you open your windows, making sure that they don't have gaps, so that you're not letting mosquitoes into the house at night and waking up to that really annoying, you know, droning, buzzing noise and being like, “Oh no, where's the mosquito?”

Matthew: Yeah, so it seems like a lot of things that individuals can do to take responsibility for protecting themselves. Yeah, I mean, if there is like community wide spraying done by a city or similar, are there resources or guidance that people can turn to find out, you know, how can you talk to your neighbors about what they're doing or can you start talking to local agencies about the risks and, you know, getting them to change their practices?

Aaron: Yeah, that's a great question, Matthew. So, for people who live in a city or community that sprays, we actually do have some resources that are really helpful. In particular, we have a fact sheet that's titled, “How to Help Your Community Create an Effective Mosquito Management Plan”.

Aaron: And it has some really good tips, but in general, we'd, you know, want a good vector control district program to have education and communication to make sure everybody knows what they can do to stay safe at home. You know, to stay healthy and reduce mosquito populations through some of the methods that we've just been talking about.

Aarons: So, using prevention, but then also eliminating standing water. Because, you know, if you're doing that in your yard, it's great, but really what's going to make a difference is if everybody in your neighborhood is trying to eliminate these sources of standing water.

Aaron: You know, so a good municipal control district program will also, you know, monitor for larval mosquito populations and disease prevalence. And they'll only spray for adults when certain thresholds are met. You know, are the mosquitoes that actually vector diseases even present at high levels? Are the diseases themselves even present?

Aaron: You know, high populations of some of those other mosquito species might be a significant nuisance, you know, warranting some non-chemical reduction efforts, but they're not what should trigger these chemical treatments. So, when diseases are found at concerning levels and the municipality does decide to treat, you know, we certainly encourage ecologically responsible interventions like only treating waterways where those disease carrying mosquitoes are found and using least toxic options.

Aaron: So, kind of with all of that in mind, if you want to get involved at that community level, the first step is to kind of, you know, learn what's happening in your area and find out, does your county or your city have a mosquito management plan? If so, does it include monitoring? Is there an outreach program to kind of promote those efforts at home to reduce mosquito concerns? You know, if they spray for mosquitoes do they have thresholds?

Aaron:  So, answering some of those questions that we just kind of were running through is I think a great first step and then yeah that document that I was mentioning has, you can find it in our Xerces library, kind of outlines some of the ways you can kind of get in touch with your local agency, kind of try to ask those questions.

Matthew: Yeah, and we can add links to those in the show notes for this episode as well. So yeah.

Rachel: Well, thank you so much, Aaron, for answering all these questions about a really difficult topic. But we're going to end on my favorite question that's a little bit more fun.

Rachel: What inspired you to get into this line of work, saving invertebrates through pesticide reform? And is that something you've always kind of done or did you find your way here kind of on a roundabout?

Aaron: No, so I found my way here on a little bit of a roundabout. So, I've always been into insects and invertebrate conservation. So, I've worked in, kind of, invertebrate conservation in one way or another since undergrad when I worked in a forest entomology lab.

Aaron: And then I had a series of short-term positions, working to conserve a couple different blue butterflies, the Karner Blue Butterfly in Upstate New York and then the Mission Blue Butterfly in the San Francisco Bay Area. So, maybe those blue butterflies kind of paved my way to Xerces.

Aaron: But, those experiences kind of give me a real interest in working to conserve ecological function kind of in urban landscapes, because a lot of these butterflies that I was working on, you know, they had these remnant patches of habitat that were in these pretty populated areas, and you know kind, of looking to answer the question like how can we best support these kind of dwindling populations in these areas that, you know, also are really fragmented, have, you know, humans in our yards and things like that in the way.

Aaron: But then it's like, oh, maybe we can be part of the solution. So that kind of began to inspire me and then for my PhD dissertation I studied native plants for pollinators in yards and parks, places like that here in the Pacific Northwest, which is what really kind of got me started on, you know, really working to save invertebrates in residential landscapes.

Aaron: You know, through that experience, I worked a lot with community groups, with home gardeners through the Master Gardener program, and I feel lucky in my current position to be able to still work with people who are passionate about conserving invertebrates in their yards and in their broader communities. So, I'm new to the pesticide reform side of things, but it's been really fascinating and really rewarding to kind of work to protect invertebrates from this angle.

Rachel: Well, we're certainly lucky to have you at Xerces.

Aaron: Thanks, Rachel. I feel lucky to be here.

Rachel: Well, thank you again and I do hope that when the study comes out and you crunch the numbers and you have results, we'd love to have you back to talk to folks, a little bit more deeply about those results. I think I'm definitely interested in hearing about them.

Aaron: I would be super excited to do that. Yeah, I think that would be great to share.

Rachel: Alright, well thank you so much, Aaron.

Aaron: Yea, thanks Rachel, thanks Matthew.

Matthew: Yeah, thank you.

Matthew: Bug Banter is brought to you by the Xerces Society, a donor supported non-profit that works to protect insects and other invertebrates – the life that sustains us. 

Matthew: If you’re already a donor, thank you so much. If you want to support our work go to xerces.org/donate. For information about this podcast and show notes go to xerces.org/bugbanter.