Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Tropical forests are undergoing deep changes caused by human activities, which have repercussions on the habitats of wild animal, particularly mammals. As mammals serve as a main source of blood meals for forest mosquitoes, their decline may affect the mosquitoes, as do changes in their habitats and abiotic conditions, such as rainfall, temperature, etc. Finally, along with humans come new species of mosquitoes-more generalist and more anthropophilic-that adapt to these new conditions and, moreover, serve as vectors for re-emerging diseases against which local populations have no more immunity. In this work, we derive a deterministic model which includes the effects of anthropisation, two species of mosquito that interact with one another (one is a generalist, whilst the other is sedentary and lives in the forest), and blood feeding preferences between multiple blood sources. We consider two socio-ecological areas, corresponding to a domestic area (for instance, a village), and a wild area (for instance, a tropical forest). A comprehensive analysis of the system is carried out using classical theory and monotone systems theory. We analyse the efficiency of individual protective measures, such as mosquito nets and repellents, against the domestic mosquito species. We investigate the risk of invasion of the wild area by a generalist mosquito species. We show that habitat anthropisation and high interspecific competition facilitate the invasion. When the mathematical system converges towards a periodic cycle, we provide numerical estimates for the periodic invasion threshold. Using a global sensitivity analysis, we show that the model is sensitive to the level of anthropisation, the adaptability of the invasive species to the forest area, and its fitness. The more efficient way to control the invasion is, therefore, to limit, as much as possible, the forest anthropisation.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Institutions: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement, Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement, UMR Botanique et Modélisation de l’Architecture des Plantes et des végétations, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Université de Yaoundé I
Language: English
Subfield: Applied Mathematics
Field: Mathematics
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Life on land
Open Access status: green
Funders: University of Pretoria, Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, India, Agence Nationale de la Recherche, Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement, Université de Montpellier, Conseil Régional de La Réunion, Région Occitanie Pyrénées-Méditerranée, European Regional Development Fund
OpenAlex ID: W7224023109