Automated age grading of female Culex pipiens by an optical sensor system coupled to a mosquito trap
González-Pérez, María I. (Unitat mixta d'investigació IRTA-UAB en Sanitat Animal. Centre de Recerca en Sanitat Animal)
Faulhaber, Bastian (Irideon S.L)
Williams, Mark (Irideon S.L)
Encarnaçao, Joao (Irideon S.L)
Villalonga, Pancraç (Irideon S.L)
Aranda Pallero, Carles (Servei de Control de Mosquits del Consell Comarcal del Baix Llobregat)
Busquets, Núria (Unitat mixta d'investigació IRTA-UAB en Sanitat Animal. Centre de Recerca en Sanitat Animal)

Date:	2024
Abstract:	The age distribution of a mosquito population is a major determinant of its vectorial capacity. To contribute to disease transmission, a competent mosquito vector, carrying a pathogen, must live longer than the extrinsic incubation period of that pathogen to enable transmission to a new host. As such, determining the age of female mosquitoes is of significant interest for vector-borne diseases surveillance and control programs. In this contribution, an automated age-grading system was developed to classify the age of female Culex pipiens, which is the primary vector of West Nile virus and other pathogens of medical and veterinary importance in northern latitudes. The system comprises an optical wingbeat sensor coupled to the entrance of a mosquito trap and a machine learning model. Three age classes were used in the study: young (2-4 days), middle (7-9 days) and old (14-16 days). From a balanced dataset of flight data, four features were extracted: wingbeat fundamental frequency, spectrogram, power spectral density and Mel frequency cepstral coefficients. The features were used for training with the XGBoost algorithm to generate a model for age classification. The best performing model was trained with the power spectral density feature on two age classes, ≤ 4 days old and ≥ 7 days old, and had an accuracy of 71. 8%. An automated mosquito age-grading system was applied for the first time to our knowledge for automated age classification in mosquitoes; and complements the mosquito genus and sex classification capability of the system reported in our previous work. The system may find use in mosquito-borne disease surveillance and control to help to discriminate young mosquitoes (≤ 4 days old) from older mosquitoes, which may act as vectors of arboviruses.
Grants:	European Commission 853758 European Commission 101099283
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Culex pipiens ; Mosquito vectors ; Age grading ; Chronological age ; Optical sensor ; Machine learning
Published in:	Parasites & vectors, Vol. 17 (december 2024) , ISSN 1756-3305

DOI: 10.1186/s13071-024-06606-w
PMID: 39696452

7 p, 992.6 KB

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Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Health sciences and biosciences > Centre de Recerca en Sanitat Animal (CReSA-IRTA)
Articles > Research articles
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