DOI: 10.5061/dryad.7m0cfxprg
title: Larval site characteristics of mosquito Aedes aegypti in La Lope, Gabon

description: This dataset is described and analyzed in the paper: "Xia,
 S., Dweck, H. K. M., Lutomiah, J., Sang, R., McBride, C. S., Rose, N. H.,
 Ayala, D., & Powell, J. R. (2021). Larval sites of the mosquito
 Aedes aegypti formosus in forest and domestic habitats in Africa and the
 potential association with oviposition evolution. Ecology and Evolution,
 00, 1– 17. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.8332" The mosquito
 Ae. aegypti is a major vector of several arboviral diseases. In
 Africa, Ae. aegypti can be found in both ancestral forest habitats and
 human-made domestic habitats, such as villages. They also use different
 types of containers as larval sites: while the forest Ae. aegypti use tree
 holes and rock pools, the domestic population rely mostly on artificial
 contains such as plastic buckets. As an initial attempt to better
 understand Ae. aegypti larval ecology and evolution in different habitat,
 we characterized the microenvironment of their larval
 sites in both habitats and compare between them. We focuses on two
 localities in Africa: La Lope in Gabon, and Rabai in Kenya. The current
 dataset contains data from La Lope and the Rabai data can be
 found in a different dataset (DOI:10.5061/dryad.3tx95x6cz). In this
 dataset, we characterized 38 Ae. aegypti larval site
 from the La Lope village and 60 larval site from the La Lope forest.
 Specifically, the first ten column of the dataset provides basic
 information of each larval site, such as sampling location, date and
 habitat etc. The data also includes the measures of 11 physical variables
 of each larva site. These variables describe the size of
 the container, ambient environment such as temperature and humidity, and
 water pH and conductivity. Lastly, the dataset has the number of
 Ae. aegypti and other mosquito species found in each larval site, as well
 as measures of microbial density. Using this dataset, we found that forest
 and village larval sites have different microenvironments. The detailed
 analysis and discussion can be found in the paper. We hope this dataset
 could provide useful basic ecological information on Ae. aegypti larval
 habitat in Africa. We encourage future studies to explore this dataset and
 generate more hypothesis on Ae. aegypti ecology and evolution. 
description: This dataset was collected during fieldwork in La Lope, Gabon
 between November and December 2016. We collected basic information and
 measured 11 physical characteristics for 98 mosquito larval sites in both
 forest and village habitats. A potential mosquito larval site was defined
 as a water-holding container holding at least one mosquito
 larva.
description: In the dataset, the first ten columns of the dataset described
 the basic information of each larval site, including collection date,
 location, and larval site habitat, etc. The 11th column indicates whether
 physical characteristics were measured for a larval site. The 12th to the
 22nd columns contain the 11 physical variables. The 23rd column indicates
 whether the site was used in the larval density analysis, and the next
 four columns contain the larval density measures. The 28th column
 indicates whether the site was included in the analysis of predator
 presence. The 29th and 30th columns are the information about microbial
 density in the larval sites. Lastly, the last column is an indicator of
 which sites have bacterial community composition data. 
 The metadata provides more explanation on how each variable was
 recorded or measured, as well as a column that estimates the credibility
 of the measurement with some additional notes. Missing values are
 indicated by "NA" in the dataset.