Hitting mosquitos when they are weakest
Monday, August 17, 2015 - 09:00
in Biology & Nature
Mosquitos. During the summer months they can be annoying, but in the villages around the southern tip of Lake Gruyere, they can become a real pest – if, that is, they are left unchecked. That is why for the past 20 years local authorities have been culling the mosquito population in interventions timed to hit the mosquito larvae with a natural insecticide when they are most vulnerable. To assist decision-makers in planning these interventions, Max Mentha and Morgan Bruhin, both master's students in environmental engineering, worked on the development of an online platform that tracks the larval development around the hotspot.