New data collection needed
New ways of monitoring diseases in urban environments
Fauna in urban environments has been monitored in academic settings by physical capture, visual observation, or through collection of animal traces. However, these are very labor intensive, expensive, and don’t give accurate numbers. In recent years, academic ecology has moved towards environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling, with special breakthroughs happening in sequencing invertebrate ingested DNA (iDNA). Blood drinking organisms (like leeches, flies) don’t degrade their host's DNA immediately which leaves a window for scientists to sequence the blood in the stomach in these animals. Recent work has expanded the iDNA sequencing to mosquitos. In all processes, human DNA needs to be blocked so it doesn’t overinfluence the readings.
Looking at this from another direction, we could work with the high amounts of human blood in these samples (especially mosquitos) to understand what diseases are spreading through proximal human populations. Indeed, viral COVID RNA stays in mosquitos for at least 10 days post feeding. Thus, mosquito sequencing could provide more local sampling compared to wastewater (which is normally neighborhood specific).
Other thoughts:
