While native mosquitoes are well adapted to local winters, the situation is different for the Asian tiger mosquito. Its eggs usually overwinter in the larval stage in hidden places.
House mosquitoes can also transmit diseases
“This could be any flower pot outside or any small depression where water collects,” says Schwarz. When they freeze, many of them die – depending on the temperature and duration. “When the soil is as deep as it is now in most areas, we can expect very large losses.”
Whether a cold winter automatically leads to a summer with fewer mosquitoes is hard to say, according to Schwarz. Conditions in the coming months also play a significant role.
“If the spring and summer weather is very good – meaning warm and wet – then they can develop relatively quickly and produce several generations, more than making up for the winter losses.”
However, this is more difficult with the Asian tiger mosquito. “I’m guessing he won’t recover that quickly,” says Schwarz.
What many people don’t know: House mosquitoes can also transmit diseases. Although the Asian tiger mosquito is particularly known for this – for example, for tropical diseases such as dengue or Zika – native species such as *Culex pipiens* are also considered potential vectors. House mosquitoes can transmit, for example, the West Nile virus.
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And how exactly does disease transmission work? “If a tiger mosquito bites a person, sucks their blood, and that person has, for example, dengue fever, then it picks up pathogens, flies to the next person, sucks blood there again, and then those pathogens are introduced into the bloodstream.”
However, as long as there are only a few tiger mosquitoes around, the risk of infection is low, according to Schwarz: “If there are only a few tiger mosquitoes, then the likelihood of transmission is very low.”
