From eggs to bites: do ovitrap data provide reliable estimates of <i>Aedes albopictus</i> biting females?

Abstract

This work provides the first evidence of the possibility to predict mean number of adult biting <i>Ae. albopictus</i> females based on mean number of eggs and to compute the threshold of eggs/ovitrap associated to epidemiological risk of arbovirus transmission in the study area. Overall, however, the large confidence intervals in the model predictions represent a caveat regarding the reliability of monitoring schemes based exclusively on ovitrap collections to estimate numbers of biting females and plan control interventions.