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.

Plant sugar is an essential dietary constituent for mosquitoes, and hemipteran honeydew is one of the many forms of plant sugar that is important to mosquitoes. Many insects rely on volatile honeydew semiochemicals to locate aphids or honeydew itself. Mosquitoes exploit volatile semiochemicals to locate sources of plant sugar but their attraction to honeydew has not previously been investigated. Here, we report the attraction of female yellow fever mosquitoes, Aedes aegypti, to honeydew odorants from the green peach aphid, Myzus persicae, and the pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum, feeding on fava bean, Vicia faba. We used solid phase micro-extraction and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to collect and analyze headspace odorants from the honeydew of A. pisum feeding on V. faba. An eight-component synthetic blend of these odorants and synthetic odorant blends of crude and sterile honeydew that we prepared according to literature data all attracted female A. aegypti. The synthetic blend containing microbial odor constituents proved more effective than the blend without these constituents. Our study provides the first evidence for anemotactic attraction of mosquitoes to honeydew and demonstrates a role for microbe-derived odorants in the attraction of mosquitoes to essential plant sugar resources.

BACKGROUND: Harnessing insect ecology for insect control is an innovative concept that seeks to exploit, among others, insect-microbe ecological interactions for improved control of pest insects. Microbe-produced cheese odour attracts several dipterans, including host-seeking mosquitoes, but this phenomenon has not been thoroughly explored for mosquito control.Here we tested the hypothesis that attraction of mosquitoes to cheese odour can be exploited as an ecological trap for mosquito control.RESULTS: In laboratory and/or field experiments, we show that (i) each of five cheese varieties tested (Raclette, Pecorino, Brie, Gruyere, Limburger) strongly attracts female Aedes aegypti and Culex pipiens; (ii) cheese infusions, or headspace odourant extracts (HOEs) of cheese infusions, significantly affect oviposition choices by mosquitoes, (iii) HOEs contain at least 13 odourants; (iv) in field settings, cheese infusions more effectively stimulate mosquito oviposition than positive bluegrass infusion controls, and also capture (by drowning) the spotted wing Drosophila, Drosophila suzukii; and (v) home-made cheese infusions modulate oviposition choices by mosquito females and affect the survivorship of their offspring larvae. CONCLUSION: Our data show that microbial metabolites associated with cheese are attractive to mosquito females seeking hosts and oviposition sites and are likely toxic to mosquito larvae. These microbes and their metabolites could thus be co-opted for both the attract, and the kill, function of 'attract & kill' mosquito control tactics. Implementation of customizable and nonconventional nutritional media as microbe-based ecological traps presents a promising concept which exploits insect ecology for insect control.

Summary The Asian longhorned tick (ALHT) ( Haemaphysalis longicornis Neumann, 1901) is a vector for many pathogenic micro-organisms of veterinary and public health importance. The ALHT is native to east Asia but was accidentally introduced into New Zealand and Australia in the early 1990s/late 1880s, respectively. It is now well established in these countries and it is a competent vector for Theileria orientalis Ikeda, which can cause significant livestock morbidity and mortality. Recently, this tick was introduced into North America. It was first formally detected on sheep in New Jersey in 2017, although it is now thought that it may have been present in the USA since 2010 but was initially misidentified as the morphologically similar rabbit tick H. leporispalustris (Packard, 1869). As of August 2022, this tick has been reported in 17 US eastern states. In this case study, we illustrate how we engaged an interdisciplinary team to examine the habitat suitability for the ALHT across North America under current and future climatic conditions. Using a transdisciplinary approach, we also considered potential routes of entry into Canada from the north-eastern states of the USA. Using published and current surveillance data, we generated habitat suitability models to predict the most likely areas in North America for the geographic expansion of the ALHT. Following discussions with climate change experts and entomologists, models were also developed to examine future habitat suitability under selected climate change scenarios. Interviews with experts and government colleagues suggest that likely routes of entry into Canada include cross-border movement of infested terrestrial wildlife and livestock, dog importations and the movement of migratory birds. Enhanced tick surveillance, including the use of citizen science, is required to gain a better understanding of how this tick might spread in the future. The logo of T C C dash 3 W. A map is depicted and the bottom-left part of the map is highlighted. The logo of the University of Calgary Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. The logo of the Canadian Animal Health Surveillance System or C A H S S.