Bionomics of Mosquito Larvae (Diptera: Culicidae) in Golestan National Park, a Biosphere Reserve, Northeastern Iran.

Background: Golestan National Park is the first, oldest and most vast national park in Iran. It was registered as a biosphere reserve by UNESCO in 1977. The park is located in Golestan, North Khorasan and Semnan Provinces. There is no information about the mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) in this park.

Methods: The larvae of mosquitoes were captured from various habitats using the standard 350 ml capacity dippers and also by pipettes, for small larval breeding sites, and buckets, for wells, during spring-autumn 2019. Larvae were preserved in lactophenol and mounted on microscope slides in Berlese medium and identified by morphological characters. The altitude and coordinates of the sampling localities, larval habitat characteristics and physicochemical features of habitat waters were recorded. Association and affinity indices were calculated.

Results: In total, 1349 larvae including 13 species across four genera were collected: Anopheles claviger, An. maculipennis s.l., An. moghulensis, An. superpictus s.l., Culex hortensis, Cx. perexiguus, Cx. pipiens, Cx. theileri, Cx. torrentium, Cx. tritaeniorhynchus, Culiseta longiareolata, Cs. subochrea and Uranotaenia unguiculata. Anopheles moghulensis and Cx. torrentium were new to the region. Culiseta longiareolata (62.6%) displayed the most abundance. Anopheles maculipennis s.l., An. moghulensis and Cs. subochrea were the least specimens (0.1%). Larval habitat characteristics, physicochemical features of habitat waters, association occasions, and percentages were presented. The nitrate of water samples displayed a significant difference among the species (P=0.003).

Conclusion: The study of bionomics of adult mosquitoes and detection of the vectors of different pathogens using serological or molecular-specific tests are recommended.