Mozzie Monitors is a citizen science program on mosquito surveillance which was launched in June 2018 in SA by the Associate Professor Craig Williams (University of South Australia) and his research group Healthy Environments, Healthy People. The project was originally crowd-funded, with a news and fund-raising campaign run by UniSA.
In the first phase, the program involved citizen scientists setting up a mozzie trap in their yards to increase scientific data on mosquito community composition. It also aimed to raise awareness regarding mosquitoes ecology and epidemiological importance.
In the season 2018-19, 126 people were actively engaged every month, using BG-GAT traps to collect mosquitoes and email the pictures of the catch to the research team. Together, citizen scientists and researchers, worked to collect and identify more than 10,000 mosquitoes in only one year. Among the most common species collected, there were several vector mosquitoes which can transmit infectious diseases, such as Ross River and Barmah Forest viruses.
Mozzie Monitors is now going to its next phase, where it will be comparing the use of traps vs the iNaturalist app to track and map the distribution of mozzies across Australia.
Find out more on how to get involved in:
https://hehp.wordpress.com/2019/11/22/call-for-citizen-scientists-in-sa/
iNaturalist: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/mozzie-monitors
Twitter: https://twitter.com/HEHPeople
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mozziemonitorsproject
Let´s keep tracking mosquitoes!
