Résumé
This dataset is described and analyzed in the paper: "Xia,
S., Dweck, H. K. M., Lutomiah, J., Sang, R., McBride, C. S., Rose, N. H.,
Ayala, D., & Powell, J. R. (2021). Larval sites of the mosquito
Aedes aegypti formosus in forest and domestic habitats in Africa and the
potential association with oviposition evolution. Ecology and Evolution,
00, 1– 17. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.8332" The mosquito
Ae. aegypti is a major vector of several arboviral diseases. In
Africa, Ae. aegypti can be found in both ancestral forest habitats and
human-made domestic habitats, such as villages. They also use different
types of containers as larval sites: while the forest Ae. aegypti use tree
holes and rock pools, the domestic population rely mostly on artificial
contains such as plastic buckets. As an initial attempt to better
understand Ae. aegypti larval ecology and evolution in different habitat,
we characterized the microenvironment of their larval
sites in both habitats and compare between them. We focuses on two
localities in Africa: La Lope in Gabon, and Rabai in Kenya. The current
dataset contains data from La Lope and the Rabai data can be
found in a different dataset (DOI:10.5061/dryad.3tx95x6cz). In this
dataset, we characterized 38 Ae. aegypti larval site
from the La Lope village and 60 larval site from the La Lope forest.
Specifically, the first ten column of the dataset provides basic
information of each larval site, such as sampling location, date and
habitat etc. The data also includes the measures of 11 physical variables
of each larva site. These variables describe the size of
the container, ambient environment such as temperature and humidity, and
water pH and conductivity. Lastly, the dataset has the number of
Ae. aegypti and other mosquito species found in each larval site, as well
as measures of microbial density. Using this dataset, we found that forest
and village larval sites have different microenvironments. The detailed
analysis and discussion can be found in the paper. We hope this dataset
could provide useful basic ecological information on Ae. aegypti larval
habitat in Africa. We encourage future studies to explore this dataset and
generate more hypothesis on Ae. aegypti ecology and evolution.