Incidence of EHDV and BTV, arboviruses transmitted by Culicoides, is on the rise in North American (Ruder et al. 2015). In Florida, these diseases cause severe economic damage to the growing deer farming industry (Adams et al. 2016). Putative vectors of EHDV, Culciodiesstellifer and venustus, were only recently identified in Florida with many fundamental biological questions outstanding (McGregor et al. 2019). larval ecology is poorly understood across many Culicoides species particularly those inhabiting complex natural areas (Purse et al. 2015). Initial efforts have found seepages an important habitat for putative vectors in northern Florida (Erram et al. 2019). Distributions and densities within these seepage habitats is poorly understood and warrants further investigation. In this thesis we will seek to investigate distributions and densities of Culicoides and potential drivers of these trends in seepages associated with a commercial deer farm in northern Florida. In addition, common sampling techniques for larval culicoides were compared to assess their suitability and influence on data interpretation in these habitats.
