Dengue is a mosquito-borne viral infection and is a major public health concern [1]. Over 2.5 billion people – or 40% of the world population [1] – are at risk, and about 390 million people are infected annually [2]. Increased global connectivity and population movements affect the global distribution of both the dengue virus and its vectors [3]–[7] and this has facilitated the spread of dengue to new geographic areas. Therefore, it is important to understand the vector's potential capability to transmit dengue globally.
Weather and climate are important factors in determining mosquito behavior and the effectiveness of dengue virus transmission [8]. Compared to studies on malaria [9], however, research on the relationship between weather variables and dengue is mostly limited to average temperature values and these miss the important role of short-term variability [8], [10]. Lambrechts et al. [11] demonstrated through combined experimental and simulation studies that the diurnal temperature range (DTR) has important effects on two parameters of A. aegypti: the infection and transmission probability. Carrington et al. [12] demonstrated the influence of DTR on the life cycle stages of A. aegypti. Using the same daily average temperature but with small and large DTR to mimic the temperatures corresponding to the high and low seasons of dengue infection in Thailand, they demonstrated the negative influence of a large DTR on these vector parameters of dengue transmission by A. aegypti.