Urban-rural differentiation and zoonotic risk assessment of Aedes, Anopheles and Culex vector dispersal - URBAN-RURAL-Zoonoses -

Start date: 10/2023
End date: 09/2026
Funding: Bundesministerium für Gesundheit
Project responsibility on site:  Prof. Dr. Elke Hertig, Christian Voll

The topic of the interdisciplinary PhD project URBAN-RURAL-Zoonoses is the differentiated investigation of the distribution of Aedes, Anopheles and Culex mosquitoes in the city of Augsburg and the spatially differentiated risk assessment of the occurrence of potential vectors along an urban-rural gradient. Potential breeding habitats and the adult mosquito fauna will be surveyed at selected sites representative of urban and rural areas, and the local climatic and environmental conditions will be measured and recorded. The results of the field surveys will be used to characterise the habitats of the species studied and to identify suitable and unsuitable urban and rural habitats. A spatially differentiated statistical analysis using the results of the field surveys and other spatial climatic and environmental data sets, as well as non-climatic influencing variables, allows an estimation of the risk potential for the entire study region. The results will be analysed in detail with respect to urban differences and urban-rural contrasts in order to assess the importance of urban areas as vector habitats.

Project responsibility:
Prof. Dr. Elke Hertig, Regionaler Klimawandel und Gesundheit, Medizinische Fakultät, Universität Augsburg
Dr. Mandy Schäfer, Institut für Infektionsmedizin, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Bundesforschungsinstitut für Tiergesundheit, Greifswald - Insel Riems