Adult mosquitoes collected by various methods from suburban backyards and dog kennels

Mosquito surveillance often targets nuisance or disease vector species.  However, mosquito diversity is often overlooked as targeted adult abundance or infection measurements are considered more important with CO₂-baited Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) mosquito light traps.  From January 2013 to March 2015, we conducted weekly adult mosquito surveillance at seven locations near Gainesville, FL, and compared mosquito diversity captures from a CDC trap with those from three non-host-seeking techniques, a large and small aspirator and a sweep net.  Trapping sites included suburban backyards (4) and dog kennel facilities (3).  A total of 36 species and 69,871 individual mosquitoes were collected.  Three new records for Alachua County Florida included Culex coronator (Dyar and Knab), Aedes henersoni (Cockerell) and Wyeomyia mitchellii (Theobald).  The dominant (>5% of total) mosquito species collected during the study included: Aedes atlanticus (Dyar and Knab), Aedes infirmatus (Dyar and Knab), Anopheles crucians Wiedemann, Culiseta melanura (Coquillett), Culex erraticus (Dyar and Knab), Culex nigripalpus Theobald, Uranotenia sapphirina (Osten Sacken).  The CDC trap captured the most species, followed by large aspirator, small aspirator, and the sweep net.  All dominant and subdominant (1 to 5% of total) species collected using the non-host-seeking techniques were recovered from the CDC trap.  Future sampling should consider the utility and limitations of aspirator collections when designing field sampling projects, especially those in residential areas.