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Tree Cover Cuts Dengue Mosquitoes in Costa Rica, Stanford Study Finds

Greater tree cover boosts competing native mosquito populations to reduce dengue risk

Overview

  • The Stanford-led research in southern Costa Rica combined field sampling and satellite imagery to map mosquito communities across forested, agricultural and residential landscapes.
  • Areas with richer tree cover exhibited significantly lower densities of the invasive Aedes albopictus mosquitoes that transmit dengue fever.
  • Forested patches hosted diverse native mosquito species that outcompete invasive vectors by occupying breeding and feeding niches.
  • Residential zones showed low species diversity paired with high invasive mosquito abundance, while agricultural lands produced mixed outcomes linked to crop types and land management.
  • Authors urge that habitat preservation and reforestation complement larger forest reserves and that further studies investigate how other disease vectors respond to tree cover