EVALUATING LARVAL COMPETITION BETWEEN AEDES-ALBOPICTUS AND A-TRISERIATUS (DIPTERA, CULICIDAE) THROUGH REPLACEMENT SERIES EXPERIMENTS

Potential larval competition between Aedes albopictus (Skuse) and Aedes triseriatus (Say) was examined with replacement series experimental design, an analysis previously used to evaluate competition between plant species. Experimental design was a factorial treatment arrangement with four replications of larval diet (high and low) and species ratio (proportions of A. triseriatus/A. albopictus larvae 1:0, 3:1, 1:1, 1:3, and 0:1). Adult emergence, adult biomass, and sex ratio were evaluated. No competitive effects were observed in the high-diet treatments; however, significant competitive relationships were observed for all parameters in the low-diet treatments. Competition was evaluated by replacement diagrams, relative crowding coefficients, and analysis of variance. All techniques indicated that A. albopictus was a superior competitor to A. triseriatus under low diet. The use of the replacement series design was a powerful method for examining competition through a single experiment. The results indicate that replacement series experimental design can be used to characterize competition between animal species, providing that individual animals can be placed in an experimental habitat in appropriate proportions.