Female mosquitoes exploit olfactory, CO
2
, visual, and thermal cues to locate vertebrate hosts. Male and female mosquitoes also consume floral nectar that provides essential energy for flight and survival. Heretofore, nectar-foraging mosquitoes were thought to be guided solely by floral odorants. Using common tansies,
Tanacetum vulgare
L., northern house mosquitoes,
Culex pipiens
L., and yellow fever mosquitoes,
Aedes aegypti
(L.), we tested the hypothesis that the entire inflorescence Gestalt of olfactory, CO
2
and visual cues is more attractive to mosquitoes than floral odorants alone. In laboratory experiments, we demonstrated that visual and olfactory inflorescence cues in combination attract more mosquitoes than olfactory cues alone. We established that tansies become net producers of CO
2
after sunset, and that CO
2
enhances the attractiveness of a floral blend comprising 20 synthetic odorants of tansy inflorescences. This blend included nine odorants found in human headspace. The “human-odorant-blend” attracted mosquitoes but was less effective than the entire 20-odorant floral blend. Our data support the hypothesis that the entire inflorescence Gestalt of olfactory, CO
2
and visual cues is more attractive to mosquitoes than floral odorants alone. Overlapping cues between plants and vertebrates support the previously postulated concept that haematophagy of mosquitoes may have arisen from phytophagy.
For a very long time, mosquitoes have been known or suspected to consume plant liquids. Recently eclosed mosquitoes cannot survive long without consuming sugary plant liquids that provide fuel for flight and enable blood‐feeding and mating. Populations of even highly synanthropic mosquitoes may not be able to persist without phytophagy, even when vertebrate blood is readily available. Phytophagy is a key element of mosquito ecology, and understanding it is critical to combat mosquito‐borne diseases. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge about mosquito phytophagy and outline future research needs. Specifically, we review the many plant‐derived food sources mosquitoes exploit, study the pollination function of mosquitoes, highlight the predation risks of plant‐foraging mosquitoes, investigate the role of microbes in the sugar‐foraging ecology of mosquitoes, and shed light on the evolution of haematophagy.
Inflorescence patterns of ultraviolet (UV) absorption and UV-reflection are attractive to many insect pollinators. To understand whether UV inflorescence cues affect the attraction of nectar-foraging mosquitoes, we worked with the common house mosquito,
Culex pipiens
and with two plant species exhibiting floral UV cues: the tansy,
Tanacetum vulgare
, and the common hawkweed
Hieraciumm lachenalii
. Electroretinograms revealed that
Cx
.
pipiens
eyes can sense UV wavelengths, with peak sensitivity at 335 nm. Behavioural bioassays divulged that UV inflorescence cues enhance the attractiveness of inflorescence odour. In the presence of natural floral odour, female
Cx
.
pipiens
were attracted to floral patterns of UV-absorption and UV-reflection but preferred uniformly UV-dark inflorescences. Moreover,
Cx
.
pipiens
females preferred UV-dark and black inflorescence models to UV-dark and yellow inflorescence models. With feathers and pelts of many avian and mammalian hosts also being UV-dark and dark-coloured, foraging
Cx
.
pipiens
females may respond to analogous visual cues when they seek nectar and vertebrate blood resources.
The Asian bush mosquito, Aedes japonicus japonicus, and the coastal rock pool mosquito, Aedes togoi, are potential disease vectors present in both East Asia and North America. While their ranges are fairly well‐documented in Asia, this is not the case for North America. We used maximum entropy modeling to estimate the potential distributions of Ae. togoi and Ae. j. japonicus in the United States, Canada, and northern Latin America under contemporary and future climatic conditions. Our results suggest suitable habitat that is not known to be occupied for Ae. j. japonicus in Atlantic and western Canada, Alaska, the western, midwestern, southern, and northeastern United States, and Latin America, and for Ae. togoi along the Pacific coast of North America and the Hawaiian Islands. Such areas are at risk of future invasion or may already contain undetected populations of these species. Our findings further predict that the limits of suitable habitat for each species will expand northward under future climatic conditions.
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