Ecologist Todd Livdahl and his research students investigate species interactions, with a focus on mosquitoes that develop within small bodies of water. Mosquito invasions, and the impact of invaders on native species, offer unique opportunities to study interactions such as competition, predator-prey and host parasite relationships.
This lab has recently received grant support from the National Institutes of Health to test the idea of “host dilution,” in which the diversity of host species is hypothesized to have a detrimental influence on the success of a parasite.
Livdahl has been studying the behaviors of three different mosquito species, only one of which, Ochlerotatus triseriatus, is native to the United States. Aedes aegypti and the most recent immigrant,Aedes albopictus, are not native, but like to breed in habitats occupied by their native cousins.
Invasions by mosquitoes have occurred through the importation of used tires for recycling purposes. Along with new mosquitoes, parasites of mosquitoes have also arrived, and some of these new species interactions can have effects on resident species of mosquitoes as well as on the diseases that mosquitoes carry.