What is a breeding index used for?

• A. A measure of the number of breeding sites across a community calculated as sites with larvae divided by total sites inspected.
• B. The rate of adults entering a property.
• C. The average depth of standing water.
• D. The number of species of mosquitoes in an area.

Answer: (A)

A breeding index measures how productive mosquito breeding is across a surveyed area by looking at the proportion of potential breeding sites that actually contain larvae. You determine it by counting the sites with larvae and dividing by the total number of sites inspected. This gives a result that reflects how widespread larval production is, which helps you target control efforts where they’ll have the most impact and monitor changes over time as habitat management or larviciding is applied. It’s not about how many adults are entering a property, nor about how deep the standing water is, nor about how many mosquito species are present—the breeding index specifically tracks the presence of larvae across sites to gauge larval production.