Urban landscapes present unique challenges and opportunities for mosquitoes, influencing their population dynamics, behavior, and disease transmission potential. We used genetic and network analyses to explore the dispersal and life cycle patterns of the disease vector Aedes albopictus within a 0.525 sq km urban area. Despite significant landscape heterogeneity, mosquito populations were well mixed, dispersing an average of 160 meters. Population growth appeared to be influenced by local hosts and breeding sites, resulting in generation times of approximately one month. The intermittent presence of mosquito families in the trap system indicated potential time delays, likely caused by the duration of their aquatic life stages or the movement of adult mosquitoes in and out of the system. The latter suggests that if mosquitoes become infected, a disease could spread rapidly and uniformly over a month, potentially reaching neighboring areas. Our study underscores the effectiveness of kinship genetic analyses in urban mosquito ecology and in shaping targeted surveillance and control strategies.

Data and code for the manuscript "Fine-scale tiger mosquito population dynamics in urban and densely populated landscapes".