An Effective Comparison of Mosquito Population Size Pre COVID-19 and Post COVID-19

This project was done by Salvatore Cicco, Anne Hwang, Joshua Palter, Xena Fouladi, and Frank Weiderhold.

We researched why there was a sharp increase in mosquito observations on iNaturalist in 2020. We standardized all data in previous years to match 2020, so that we could get correct estimates on how many observations there were each year if the same amount of people recorded observations as in 2020. Then, once we found that there were more observations in 2020, we researched 3 main things. 1) If the temperature drastically increased in 2020 in comparison to previous years. 2) If there was more rainfall in 2020 in comparison to previous years. 3)If people were spending more time outside in 2020 in comparison to previous years. With COVID-19 precautions and quarantine, we found that more people were indeed spending more time outside closer to home in 2020 in comparison to other years, and this must be a main contributor in higher numbers of mosquito observations.