MOSQUITO FAUNA OF URBAN AREAS IN POLAND

Abstract:
There are several towns in Poland where mosquitoes cause serious problems because of their extremely abundant occurrence and nuisance. Most of the species, which occur in mass numbers, have been determined and their biology described. Despite that fact the whole mosquito fauna of those areas has not been examined so often and so thoroughly as it has been done in Warsaw, where the mosquitoes do not occur in plague numbers. Ca 70 per cent of species recorded in natural and semi-natural environments of Mazovian Lowland occurs in Warsaw. Most Warsaw’s species were recorded in suburbs. Only three of these species do not occur in other urban sites. Thus more than 60% of Mazovian fauna has been recorded in typical town environments (downtown parks, housing estates and town centre). The smallest number of species has been recorded in town centre but it still accounts for nearly 30 per cent of the total number of mosquito species of Mazovian natural habitats. The analysis of faunistical data from different urban and suburban habitats in Poland obtained by several researchers show some interesting characters of the fauna. Urban mosquito fauna is predominated by anthropophilous species with wide geographical range and the species, which tolerate wide spectrum of habitat types. All of the synanthropic species known in Poland have also been recorded in urban fauna. At the same time the species, which larvae breed preferably in forest pools are most frequent in parks. On the other hand those, which breed in open areas, are more frequent in housing estates than in other urban sites.