ESA Annual Meetings Online Program

0299 Attraction and discriminative behavior of Anopheles gambiae (Diptera: Culicidae) to the odor of some Afrotropical plants

Sunday, November 13, 2011: 2:47 PM
Room D2, First Floor (Reno-Sparks Convention Center)
Mahmood Reza Nikbakhtzadeh , Evolution, Ecology & Organismal Biology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
John W. Terbot , Evolution, Ecology & Organismal Biology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
Woodbridge A. Foster , Evolution, Ecology & Organismal Biology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH

=Mosquitoes are attracted to different plant species in order to intake sugar. It is assumed that sugar feeding in Afrotropical mala=ria vectors is mediated by semiochemicals which in=turn can be used in the development of novel sampling techniques and possibly alternative control methods of malaria. Here we present a small simple olfactometer, which showed its efficiency in mosquito behavior studies.

=A dual port wind-tunnel olfactometer with pressurized=air current was used to measure the oriented flight response of the adult mosquitoes to plants’ volatile stimuli. A mean number of 200 <=span style=3D'font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-ascii-t=heme-font: major-bidi;mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-hansi-theme-font:m=ajor-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi'>male and female adults (less than a day old=) with no access to blood and sugar were released for each single experiment. =Consistency between the two ports was tested by dual-blank and dual-honey experiments a=nd the system was shown to be fairly balanced.

=Our experiments with Anopheles gambiae in a Y-shaped olfactometer demonstrated a preference=to a number of common African plants. The attractive plants were Lantana camara, Parthenium hysterophorus, Senna<=/span> didymobotrya, Senna= occidentalis and Te=coma stans; while=Datura stramonium, Rcinis communis=, Senna bicapsularis<=/i> and Tithonia diversifolia<=/span> did not show a significant preference comparing to the sugar-negative contr=ol plant (Phalaris arundinacea=). 

=Our correlation analyses indicate that individuals counted in the treatment trap should have been activated by plant volatiles’ induction. =The number of activated female mosquitoes was significantly higher than males w=hen tested with different experimental plants, but no sexual difference was observed for our attracted mosquitoes to any of experimental plants.=doi: 10.1603/ICE.2016.57823