Mosquito and arbovirus surveillance in wetlands of South-East England: comparison of two adult mosquito traps, use of a novel trap with FTA cards, and arbovirus testing

Effective surveillance of mosquito populations is critical to monitoring and mitigating the spread of mosquito-borne diseases (MBDs). This study evaluated the relative trapping efficiency of two widely used adult mosquito traps—the Biogents BG-Sentinel 2 (BGS2) and the Mosquito Magnet® Executive (MM)—on British mosquitoes across four wetlands in south-east England over a 12-week period. A third trap, a Box-Gravid trap fitted with an FTA card, was deployed to detect arboviruses such as West Nile virus (WNV) via saliva collection. A total of 11,584 adult female mosquitoes representing 15 species were collected. The MM trap captured a significantly higher total number of mosquitoes, while the BGS2 trap demonstrated greater species evenness and was significantly more effective at catching Culex (Culex) pipiens L., 1758. Spatial variation strongly influenced catch rates, with significant differences between wetlands. No evidence of WNV was detected in any mosquito pools or FTA cards. While b..., Mosquito traps were operated in four wetlands in Kent in south-east England, targeting wetlands in the region where Culex (Barraudius) modestus Ficalbi, 1890, a vector of WNV, is known to occur (Supp. Info figure 1; Cliffe [latitude: 51.47364, longitude: 0.47749], Northward Hill [51.46209, 0.54479], Stodmarsh [51.30388, 1.18728], and Sandwich [51.27818, 1.36086]). Broadly, Cliffe, and Northward Hill are dominated by grazing marsh including flooded grassland and vegetated permanent ditches bounding grassland grazed by livestock. Stodmarsh is a large nature reserve including wet woodland, grazing marsh, vegetated permanent ditches, wet grassland, and reedbed. The Sandwich wetland is dominated by grazed arable fields, a large permanent ditch, wet grassland, and arable fields, noticeably less wetland habitat than the other wetlands studied here. This study did not quantify the scale of available habitat at each wetland. The traps were continuously operational across 11 weeks, (calendar week..., # Data from: Mosquito and arbovirus surveillance in wetlands of South-East England: comparison of two adult mosquito traps, use of a novel trap with FTA cards, and arbovirus testing

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.rbnzs7hrp](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.rbnzs7hrp)

## Description of the data and file structure

### Files and variables

#### File: Vaux_et_al_trap_comparison_2025.csv

##### Variables

* tube number = sample ID number
* date collected = date trap contents collected (DDMMYYY)
* calendar week = annual week number
* trap = trap type (BGS2; MM; Box Gravid)
* site_code = abbreviated site name (S, C, N, ST)
* site = wetland name (Sandwich, Cliffe, Northward Hill, Stodmarsh)
* species = species name (genus and species)
* count = number of adult female mosquitoes
* count_tn = mean number of adult female mosquitoes per trap night (count devided by trap nights (7))
* pools = number of pools per sample
* location = location of trap in the wetland (A, B, C)

## Code/software

n/a

## Ac...,