California’s Mediterranean climate, with its hot, dry summers, should be arid enough to eliminate the standing water that serves as a breeding ground for mosquitoes. But even in a Southern California that is increasingly dry due to climate change, mosquitoes exploit a human-created niche in our local ecosystems: irrigated landscapes.have a talent for finding and using small bodies of water for reproduction. Even a bottle cap filled with water will do.
In an attempt to control the Mediterranean fruit fly, helicopter flyovers regularly dotted the nighttime sky in the 1990s as neighborhoods were sprayed with the pesticide malathion to kill the medfly. To counter West Nile virus in 2004, officials applied malathion in a more limited and targeted fashion in California.
Homeowners and apartment dwellers already have the ability to help keep mosquito populations in check. For their gardens, they can choose drought-tolerant native plants that require less irrigation, particularly in the summer. Once established, some native plants, such as manzanitas and sages, don’t need to be watered.educational slogan
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