The paradoxical impact of drought on West Nile virus risk: Insights from long-term ecological data

Mosquito-borne diseases are deeply embedded within ecological communities, with environmental changes – particularly climate change – shaping their dynamics. Increasingly intense droughts across the globe have profound implications for the transmission of these diseases, as drought conditions can alter mosquito breeding habitats, host-seeking behaviors, and mosquito-host contact rates. To quantify the effect of drought on disease transmission, we use West Nile virus (WNV) as a model system and leverage a robust mosquito and virus dataset consisting of over 500,000 trap nights collected from 2010-2023, spanning a historic drought period followed by atmospheric rivers. We pair this surveillance dataset with a novel modeling approach that incorporates monthly changes in bird host community competence, along with drought conditions, to estimate the effect of drought severity on WNV risk using panel regression models. Our results show that while drought decreases mosquito abundances, it para..., , # The paradoxical impact of drought on West Nile virus risk: Insights from long-term ecological data

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.b8gtht7qn](10.5061/dryad.b8gtht7qn)

## Description of the data and file structure

**Title**: The paradoxical impact of drought on West Nile virus risk: insights from long-term ecological data

**Authors**: S Sambado*, T J Sipin, Z Rennie, A Larsen, J Cunningham, A Quandt, D Sousa, and A J MacDonald

*corresponding author: [[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail]) / [[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail])

**Description**: Observational study using vector control surveillance data paired with environmental data to assess the effect of drought on mosquito abundances and infection rates in Kern County from 2010-2023. Within-estimator panel models (also known as \"fixed-effects\" in econometrics) found that an increase in drought severity led to a decrease in mosquito abundances and an increase in West Nile virus infection rates. 

**Included ...,