Mosquito Mapper: a phone application to map urban mosquitoes

Abstract

This paper presents mosquito mapper: an android phone application created with the goal of giving science-driven citizens the means to monitor mosquito populations in an urban environment. Mosquito mapper allows the recording of mosquito encounters as well as conditions surrounding the encounter. It also features a rudimentary identification tool. The goal of the application is to create a database and construct a map of the encounters free to consult for citizens and scientists. Such database constitutes a necessary first step for the development of useful management strategies addressing potential human health threats induced by mosquitoes. The citizen scientist may voluntarily provide other additional information on the circumstances of the encounter that may contain scientifically useful information. We describe the current features of the application, showcase the limited data gathered so far, then discuss the strengths, limits, potential scientific value and suggest possible future extensions for the application. The original city for which the application was developed is Berlin, Germany, but the application is coded in such a way that it is easily applicable to any urban environment.