Sleepy vampires: What happens to mosquitoes in the fall? – Cape Cod Times

Battling a mosquito boom in Wellfleet

Cape Cod Mosquito Control employees apply larvicide to a soggy thicket on Bound Brook Island in Wellfleet in an attempt to beat back a mosquito boom.

Eric Williams, Cape Cod Times

You are a female mosquito and times are getting tough. Nothing would be better than a delicious blood meal, the protein-packed punch that gives you the power to lay eggs and keep the mosquito circus going. But temperatures are dropping and you're having a little trouble cranking up the vampire engine.

According to Gabrielle Sakolsky, superintendent of the Cape Cod Mosquito Control Project, mosquitoes love hot weather and reach peak performance when the temperature is around 80 degrees. They get lethargic around 60 degrees and become generally unable to function at about 50 degrees.

We're seeing those lower temperatures on Cape Cod now. And for humans, even those in the mosquito-addled Herring River basin of Wellfleet and Truro, a kind of buggy amnesia may set in as the thermometer dips. "People forget about mosquitoes," said Sakolsky. "Suddenly, they're gone and people think, 'They weren't that bad.'"

That kind of optimistic thinking is a bit pie in the sky. Because, (spoiler alert) the mosquitoes will be back! Although you won't see them outside, especially after a hard frost, their tried-and-true reproductive strategy will be at work, waiting for the ignition of spring to crank up the buzz.

Luckily, there are things that Cape Cod residents can do right now to stymie the success of future mosquito generations, especially after all the recent rainstorms.

"Go around your yard and empty out standing water!" said Sakolsky, with considerable zeal. "Every little container has mosquitoes in it right now. And don't forget the tarps and gutters."

Sakolsky said that much of the Cape has had a relatively mellow mosquito year until recently because of dry weather. But frequent rain over the last month has increased activity, with standing water providing a nursery for mosquito reproduction, even as the temperature drops.

While cold weather kills a lot of adult mosquitoes, a hibernation-like technique called "diapause" allows some to survive the winter. According to Scientific American, "insects that enter diapause become dormant in the autumn well before it gets too cold for them to function."

And the darn mosquito eggs are practically impervious to cold. While it's theoretically possible that an extended period of sub-zero temperatures could inflict serious damage on mosquito eggs, "that's not going to happen on Cape Cod," Sakolsky said.

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So a final push to eliminate backyard mosquito nurseries can be a real shot in the arm for Caperesidents. After all, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a female mosquito can lay 100 eggs at a time, and breaking that chain might mean a big win come spring.

A notable exception to the usual backyard battle is still playing out along the Herring River basin on the Outer Cape, where high-tide washovers continue to flow inland through a dune breach at Duck Harbor in Wellfleet. These injections of Cape Cod Bay water have significantly increased mosquito breeding grounds in the area and created mosquito conditions that Sakolsky called the worst on the Cape.

Earlier this year, the Cape Cod National Seashore issued a special permit to Mosquito Control to access the area and apply larvicide. Sakolsky said her crews are still battling in Wellfleet, and she hopes to work with the Seashore in the future to devise ways to tamp down the plague.

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Sleepy vampires: What happens to mosquitoes in the fall? - Cape Cod Times