IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v17y2020i21p7872-d435480.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

ZanzaMapp: A Scalable Citizen Science Tool to Monitor Perception of Mosquito Abundance and Nuisance in Italy and Beyond

Author

Listed:
  • Beniamino Caputo

    (Department of Public Health & Infectious Diseases, Laboratory affiliated to Istituto Pasteur Italia—Fondazione Cenci Bolognetti, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
    These two authors contributed equally.)

  • Mattia Manica

    (Department of Public Health & Infectious Diseases, Laboratory affiliated to Istituto Pasteur Italia—Fondazione Cenci Bolognetti, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
    Department of Biodiversity and Molecular Ecology, Research and Innovation Centre, Fondazione Edmund Mach, 38010 San Michele all’Adige, Italy
    These two authors contributed equally.)

  • Federico Filipponi

    (Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA), via Vitaliano Brancati 48, 00144 Roma, Italy)

  • Marta Blangiardo

    (MRC Centre for Environment and Health, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London W2 1PG, UK)

  • Pietro Cobre

    (Department of Public Health & Infectious Diseases, Laboratory affiliated to Istituto Pasteur Italia—Fondazione Cenci Bolognetti, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy)

  • Luca Delucchi

    (Department of Biodiversity and Molecular Ecology, Research and Innovation Centre, Fondazione Edmund Mach, 38010 San Michele all’Adige, Italy)

  • Carlo Maria De Marco

    (Department of Public Health & Infectious Diseases, Laboratory affiliated to Istituto Pasteur Italia—Fondazione Cenci Bolognetti, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy)

  • Luca Iesu

    (Department of Biology, University of Naples Federico II, 80126 Naples, Italy)

  • Paola Morano

    (GH s.r.l., via Petralia Sottana, 11, 00132 Rome, Italy)

  • Valeria Petrella

    (Department of Biology, University of Naples Federico II, 80126 Naples, Italy)

  • Marco Salvemini

    (Department of Biology, University of Naples Federico II, 80126 Naples, Italy)

  • Cesare Bianchi

    (GH s.r.l., via Petralia Sottana, 11, 00132 Rome, Italy)

  • Alessandra della Torre

    (Department of Public Health & Infectious Diseases, Laboratory affiliated to Istituto Pasteur Italia—Fondazione Cenci Bolognetti, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy)

Abstract

Mosquitoes represent a considerable nuisance and are actual/potential vectors of human diseases in Europe. Costly and labour-intensive entomological monitoring is needed to correct planning of interventions aimed at reducing nuisance and the risk of pathogen transmission. The widespread availability of mobile phones and of massive Internet connections opens the way to the contribution of citizen in complementing entomological monitoring. ZanzaMapp is the first mobile “mosquito” application for smartphones specifically designed to assess citizens’ perception of mosquito abundance and nuisance in Italy. Differently from other applications targeting mosquitoes, ZanzaMapp prioritizes the number of records over their scientific authentication by requesting users to answer four simple questions on perceived mosquito presence/abundance/nuisance and geo-localizing the records. The paper analyses 36,867 ZanzaMapp records sent by 13,669 devices from 2016 to 2018 and discusses the results with reference to either citizens’ exploitation and appreciation of the app and to the consistency of the results obtained with the known biology of main mosquito species in Italy. In addition, we provide a first small-scale validation of ZanzaMapp data as predictors of Aedes albopictus biting females and examples of spatial analyses and maps which could be exploited by public institutions and administrations involved in mosquito and mosquito-borne pathogen monitoring and control.

Suggested Citation

  • Beniamino Caputo & Mattia Manica & Federico Filipponi & Marta Blangiardo & Pietro Cobre & Luca Delucchi & Carlo Maria De Marco & Luca Iesu & Paola Morano & Valeria Petrella & Marco Salvemini & Cesare , 2020. "ZanzaMapp: A Scalable Citizen Science Tool to Monitor Perception of Mosquito Abundance and Nuisance in Italy and Beyond," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(21), pages 1-19, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:21:p:7872-:d:435480
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/21/7872/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/21/7872/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Annelise Tran & Grégory L'Ambert & Guillaume Lacour & Romain Benoît & Marie Demarchi & Myriam Cros & Priscilla Cailly & Mélaine Aubry-Kientz & Thomas Balenghien & Pauline Ezanno, 2013. "A Rainfall- and Temperature-Driven Abundance Model for Aedes albopictus Populations," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-22, April.
    2. Corey T Callaghan & Jodi J L Rowley & William K Cornwell & Alistair G B Poore & Richard E Major, 2019. "Improving big citizen science data: Moving beyond haphazard sampling," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(6), pages 1-11, June.
    3. Giovanni Marini & Piero Poletti & Mario Giacobini & Andrea Pugliese & Stefano Merler & Roberto Rosà, 2016. "The Role of Climatic and Density Dependent Factors in Shaping Mosquito Population Dynamics: The Case of Culex pipiens in Northwestern Italy," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(4), pages 1-15, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sandra Moutinho & Jorge Rocha & Alberto Gomes & Bernardo Gomes & Ana Isabel Ribeiro, 2022. "Spatial Analysis of Mosquito-Borne Diseases in Europe: A Scoping Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-20, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zheng, Zhoumin & Xu, Nuo & Khan, Mohsin & Pedersen, Michael & Abdalgader, Tarteel & Zhang, Lai, 2024. "Nonlinear impacts of climate change on dengue transmission in mainland China: Underlying mechanisms and future projection," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 492(C).
    2. Adrien Guetté & Sébastien Caillault & Joséphine Pithon & Guillaume Pain & Hervé Daniel & Benoit Marchadour & Véronique Beaujouan, 2022. "Who and Where Are the Observers behind Biodiversity Citizen Science Data? Effect of Landscape Naturalness on the Spatial Distribution of French Birdwatching Records," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-25, November.
    3. Céline Christiansen-Jucht & Kamil Erguler & Chee Yan Shek & María-Gloria Basáñez & Paul E. Parham, 2015. "Modelling Anopheles gambiae s.s. Population Dynamics with Temperature- and Age-Dependent Survival," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-31, May.
    4. Fátima Goiri & Mikel Alexander González & Joseba Goikolea & Madalen Oribe & Visitación de Castro & Sarah Delacour & Javier Lucientes & Ione Ortega-Araiztegi & Jesús Felix Barandika & Ana Luisa García-, 2020. "Progressive Invasion of Aedes albopictus in Northern Spain in The Period 2013–2018 and A Possible Association with The Increase in Insect Bites," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(5), pages 1-14, March.
    5. Jan C. Semenza, 2015. "Prototype Early Warning Systems for Vector-Borne Diseases in Europe," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-19, June.
    6. Pasquali, S. & Soresina, C. & Marchesini, E., 2022. "Mortality estimate driven by population abundance field data in a stage-structured demographic model. The case of Lobesia botrana," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 464(C).
    7. Walker, Melody & Robert, Michael A. & Childs, Lauren M., 2021. "The importance of density dependence in juvenile mosquito development and survival: A model-based investigation," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 440(C).
    8. M. Enenkel & M. E. Brown & J. V. Vogt & J. L. McCarty & A. Reid Bell & D. Guha-Sapir & W. Dorigo & K. Vasilaky & M. Svoboda & R. Bonifacio & M. Anderson & C. Funk & D. Osgood & C. Hain & P. Vinck, 2020. "Why predict climate hazards if we need to understand impacts? Putting humans back into the drought equation," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 162(3), pages 1161-1176, October.
    9. Frantz, Rachel M. & Godinez, Humberto & Martinez, Kaitlyn & Cuello, William S. & Manore, Carrie, 2024. "Age structured partial differential equations model for Culex mosquito abundance," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 494(C).
    10. Ward-Paige, CA & White, Easton R & Madin, EMP & Bailes, LK & Bateman, RL & Belonje, E & Burns, KV & Cullain, N & de Waegh, R S & Eger, Aaron Matthius, 2020. "A framework for mapping and monitoring human-ocean interactions in near real-time during COVID-19 and beyond," OSF Preprints sxnu5, Center for Open Science.
    11. Lingcai Kong & Jinfeng Wang & Zhongjie Li & Shengjie Lai & Qiyong Liu & Haixia Wu & Weizhong Yang, 2018. "Modeling the Heterogeneity of Dengue Transmission in a City," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-21, May.
    12. Nadja Pernat & Anika Kristin Gathof & Johann Herrmann & Birgit Seitz & Sascha Buchholz, 2023. "Citizen Science Apps in a Higher Education Botany Course: Data Quality and Learning Effects," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(17), pages 1-15, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:21:p:7872-:d:435480. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.