Cost-effective larval diet mixtures for mass rearing of Anopheles arabiensis Patton (Diptera: Culicidae)

Abstract

BackgroundLarval nutrition, particularly diet quality, is a key driver in providing sufficient numbers of high quality mosquitoes for biological control strategies such as the sterile insect technique. The diet currently available to mass rear Anopheles arabiensis, referred here to as the “IAEA diet”, is facing high costs and difficulties concerning the availability of the bovine liver powder component. To promote more affordable and sustainable mosquito production, the present study aimed to find alternative diet mixtures. Eight cheaper diet mixtures comprised of varying proportions of tuna meal (TM), bovine liver powder (BLP), brewer’s yeast (BY), and chickpea (CP) were developed and evaluated through a step by step assessment on An. arabiensis larvae and adult life history traits, in comparison to the IAEA diet which served as a basis and standard.ResultsFour mixtures were found to be effective regarding larval survival to pupation and to emergence, egg productivity, adult body size and longevity. These results suggest that these different diet mixtures have a similar nutritional value that support the optimal development of An. arabiensis larvae and enhance adult biological quality and production efficiency, and thus could be used for mass rearing.ConclusionsOur study demonstrated that four different diet mixtures, 40 to 92% cheaper than the IAEA diet, can result in a positive assessment of the mosquitoes’ life history traits, indicating that this mosquito species can be effectively mass reared with a significant reduction in costs. The mixture comprised of TM + BY + CP is the preferred choice as it does not include BLP and thus reduces the cost by 92% compared to the IAEA diet.

Effects of larval diets and temperature regimes on life history traits, energy reserves and temperature tolerance of male Aedes aegypti (Diptera: Culicidae): optimizing rearing techniques for the sterile insect programmes

“…For male mosquitoes, 3–7 days is thought to be an ideal age for use in an Anopheles SIT programme [20]. Thus, the long lifespan of released male mosquitoes may be advantageous in the SIT programme, because it increases survival of released male mosquitoes and the probability of mating with wild females in the field [23].…”

“…Larvae accumulate nutrients for their development and sufficient nutrient acquisition in larval stages is vital for optimal life histories during adult stage [17–20]. Larval diets for mass-rearing purposes have been thoroughly studied in several SIT mosquito-targeted species, such as Anopheles arabiensis [21–23], An. stephensi [24], An.…”

“…Previous studies have focused mainly on the quantities of males being produced and the mating competitiveness of released male mosquitoes, but the males’ phenotypic quality, particularly adult life history traits, have been understudied [27–29, 32]. In addition, studies of mass production of male mosquitoes have focused only on a single factor [21, 23, 24], and the interactive effects between larval diet and rearing temperature have been largely neglected. In this study, we sought the optimum environmental conditions for mass rearing of male Ae.…”

Assessment of the developmental success of Anopheles coluzzii larvae under different nutrient regimes: effects of diet quality, food amount and larval density

“…Space (larval density) and food amount available per larvae are important factors that influence mosquito size and thus their quality [ 17 , 22 , 34 ]. Nevertheless, increasing food amount per larvae and space (reduced larval density) will have an important economic cost because of the supplies [ 46 ] and a reduced number of mosquitoes produced at a given time. Having a diet that permits an increase of larval density will allow hypothetically increased yield.…”

Toward implementation of combined incompatible and sterile insect techniques for mosquito control: Optimized chilling conditions for handling Aedes albopictus male adults prior to release

“…The combined IIT-SIT strategy involves several steps including mosquito mass rearing, sex separation, irradiation, packing, transportation, release and monitoring. Progress has been achieved on mosquito mass rearing by developing standard operation procedures (SOPs) for egg handling (quantification, hatching and storage) [15][16][17][18], larval rearing (larval diet, rearing density, rearing conditions and rack system) [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] and adult rearing (rearing density, blood-feeding and cages) [28][29][30], respectively. The importance of sex separation for mosquito IIT-SIT is self-evident, and despite efforts and progress being made, there is still a lack of available genetic sexing strains for Aedes spp.…”