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. 2018 Mar;124(3):46.
doi: 10.1007/s00340-018-6917-x. Epub 2018 Feb 17.

Optical remote sensing for monitoring flying mosquitoes, gender identification and discussion on species identification

Adrien P Genoud  1 , Roman Basistyy  1 , Gregory M Williams  2 , Benjamin P Thomas  1
Affiliations

Optical remote sensing for monitoring flying mosquitoes, gender identification and discussion on species identification

Adrien P Genoud et al. Appl Phys B. 2018 Mar.

Abstract

Mosquito-borne diseases are a major challenge for Human health as they affect nearly 700 million people every year and result in over 1 million deaths. Reliable information on the evolution of population and spatial distribution of key insects species is of major importance in the development of eco-epidemiologic models. This paper reports on the remote characterization of flying mosquitoes using a continuous-wave infrared optical remote sensing system. The system is setup in a controlled environment to mimic long-range lidars, mosquitoes are free flying at a distance of ~ 4 m from the collecting optics. The wing beat frequency is retrieved from the backscattered light from mosquitoes transiting through the laser beam. A total of 427 transit signals have been recorded from three mosquito species, males and females. Since the mosquito species and gender are known a priori, we investigate the use of wing beat frequency as the sole predictor variable for two Bayesian classifications: gender alone (two classes) and species/gender (six classes). The gender of each mosquito is retrieved with a 96.5% accuracy while the species/gender of mosquitoes is retrieved with a 62.3% accuracy. Known to be an efficient mean to identify insect family, we discuss the limitations of using wing beat frequency alone to identify insect species.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Optical layout of the infrared optical sensor
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Representation of the total backscattered power (top) and body and wing backscattered power (resp. bottom left and bottom right)
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Raw signal of the mosquito transiting through the laser beam (top left) together with the body and wings contribution (resp. bottom left and bottom right). The Fourier transform of the wing contribution provides with the fundamental wing beat frequency and harmonics of the insect (top right)
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Histogram of the measured wing beat frequencies for all females and males (top), all species and both genders (middle) and their respective probability density function (bottom). Every bar has a width of 5 Hz and its value is the number of events measured within this frequency window
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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