Researchers at SDSU want to better predict the risk for West Nile Virus in the state. They’re using maps from NASA to help forecast what the season might look like.
Mike Wimberly is a research scientist and professor at South Dakota State University. He says the goal of this mosquito research is to create a way to predict the risk of West Nile Virus similar to a weather or air quality forecast. He says local officials currently track mosquitoes, by trapping and testing them for the virus, but he says that only gives so much information about the risk. Wimberly says researchers are also using environmental monitoring data from NASA.
“Temperature, rainfall, soil moisture, those sorts of things. And that tells us a lot about the potential for West Nile Virus transmission,” Wimberly says. “Temperature in particular is extremely important. Mosquitoes are these tiny little cold-blooded organisms. They’re completely at the mercy of the environment. So their birth rate, growth rate, death rate, and even the development of the virus inside of the mosquito is all very closely linked to temperature. So that’s a very important piece of information, but it only tells us the potential. It doesn’t tell us for sure whether we have the virus.”
Wimberly says putting the environmental monitoring data and the mosquito tracking data together helps better indicate the risk for West Nile Virus.
SDSU biologist Mike Hildreth says West Nile Virus forecasts can help mosquito control officials utilize resources on the ground, targeting mosquitoes that carry the virus, rather than the type that are just pests.
“Communities are wanting to use their mosquito control resources for nuisance treatment, because that makes our life better,” Hildreth says. “But at the same time, if they know that there’s a West Nile Virus problem emerging, then they can hold some of those resources back, or enough of those resources back, for later in the summer when the nuisance problem isn’t as big an issue, but the transmission is higher.”
Hildreth says based on environmental data, the state could see more West Nile Virus this year than last year.
To view this year's forecasts, click here.