LABORATORY EVALUATION OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF Aedes aegypti IN TWO SEASONS: INFLUENCE OF DIFFERENT PLACES AND DIFFERENT DENSITIES

Aedes aegypti is an important vector in Brazil beingthe main vector of the dengue-fever. This paper employs survival curves todescribe the time in days from larvae to adult forms of Aedesaegypti raised, individually and collectively, and compares itduring winter and spring when positioned inside and outside a laboratory. Thestudy was conducted in São Vicente, a coastal city in Southeastern Brazil.The lowest water temperature in winter and in spring was 20 °C and thehighest was 26 °C in spring. Higher and more stable temperatures weremeasured in the intra compared to the peri in both seasons. Consequently, larvaepositioned in the intra resulted in the lowest median time to develop in theindividual and collective experiment (nine and ten days,respectively). At least 25% of the larvae positioned in the intra inthe individual experiment in the spring took only seven days to reach adulthood.Sex ratios and the median time development by sex did not show significantdifferences. These results indicate that efforts to control Aedesaegypti must be continuous and directed mainly to prevent theintra-domiciliary sites that can be infested in a week in order to reduce thehuman-vector contact.