Promotion, exploitation and results by Mosquito Alert ITALIA: the story of a successful citizen science project

Mosquito Alert is a non-profit citizen science project, coordinated by different public research centres with the goal to: 1) monitor the spread of Aedes invasive species and Culex sp. (transmitting global diseases such as dengue, or West nile fever) through georeferenced photo of adult mosquitoes; 2) increase the awareness of citizens about public health problem related to mosquitoes. During 2-years implementation of Mosquito Alert in Italy, 18,323 users downloaded the App and turned on the sampling effort monitoring. Among the 8,201 mosquito photo received, 5,168 were identified by experts as mosquitoes at species/genus level: 36.8% as Culex spp., 58.1% as Aedes albopictus, 0.3% as Ae. koreicus and 0.1% as Ae. japonicus, 0,1% (either Ae. koreicus or Ae. japonicus) and 4.5% as other autochthonous mosquito species. User’s tentative identifications matched with those of the experts in 77% and 62% of the cases for Aedes invasive species and Culex spp., respectively. Both Ae. albopictus and Cx pipiens were reported from all Italian regions, while Ae. koreicus and/or Ae. japonicus were reported from northern regions, only. Temporal trend of relative frequencies of the identified reports of the two most abundant species reflect their known seasonality. Interestingly, 11 Ae. albopictus females were reported between in winter months in 6 Italian municipalities. The added value and potential of the involvement of citizen in providing large scale data on mosquito species and in complementing conventional entomological monitoring will be discussed.