The temporal dynamics of appetitive olfactory-based associative learning in Culex quinquefasciatus Say

Olfactory based learning in insects is thought to be a widespread capability. It has only been within the recent past that this capability has been described from Culicidae. Olfactory information is of critical importance to the adult mosquito and the ability to learn may enhance an individual mosquito’s ability to forage for sugar or blood resources and could have implications for disease transmission. In this study we examined the temporal dynamics of olfactory-based associative learning in conjunction with a sugar-meal. This was accomplished by investigating the impact of mosquito age (1-2d old; prior to access to a sugar-meal versus 3-5d old; with access to 10% sucrose solution but after starvation for 24 h prior to training) on the length of time between training and testing (24 h, 10 h, 5 h, 2.5 h, 1 h, and >1 h) and the amount of time required for extinction of learned behavior in the absence of reinforcement conducted with both laboratory colony derived mosquitoes and wild first generation mosquitoes. Few overall trends were observed among ages, sexes, or mosquito source on the length of time that mosquitoes would remember. Differences were observed in all the treatments with respect to how long mosquitoes would remember. A binary logistic regression model of the data will be presented. Overall these data suggest not only differences between male and female mosquito learning but also differences between laboratory and field populations.