Nathalie Smitz,  Isra Deblauwe,  Wouter Dekoninck,  Katrien De Wolf,  Kenny Meganck,  Sophie Gombeer,  Marc De Meyer,  Thierry Backeljau,  Marc Coosemans & Wim Van Bortel. 2017. ‘Monitoring of Exotic MOsquitoes in Belgium (MEMO): molecular validations of morphological species identifications’.  Zoology Symposium 2017. Book of abstracts.

Conference abstract

Due to expanded international trade and tourism, and climate/ecological changes, mosquito species are transported, spreading, getting introduced and eventually becoming established in new territories. Novel introductions and establishments of exotic mosquito species (EMS) in Belgium are expected to occur, based on interception data and suitability models developed for some invasive species in Europe. Moreover, the introduction of potential disease vector species constitutes a threat to human and animal health. In this context, since 2017 the Belgian federal authorities, and federated and regional entities fund an active monitoring project which aims at detecting and evaluating the occurrence of EMS in Belgium. A reliable species identification irrespective of the life stage is a prerequisite for species monitoring. In this framework, molecular validations of the morphological species identifications will be performed on a subsample of the material collected during the monitoring activities. Therefore, we investigated and evaluated available molecular identification techniques for each mosquito species (native and invasive) recorded and encountered in Belgium (N=37). For each molecular marker, we evaluated its representativeness (i.e. number of reference sequences and geographical coverage) and its performance at providing a reliable identification. Finally, we established a working protocol. Except for three species complexes, all were considered reliably identifiable by DNA-based methods. For the three complexes (Nspecies=6), we are currently investigating alternative markers, which are tested on Belgian specimens. The final contribution to the project will be to develop a DNA-reference collection of all mosquito species and stages, which will be useful for this and future monitoring programs.