Effects of antennal segments defects on blood-sucking behavior in Aedes albopictus

Abstract

After mating, female mosquitoes need a blood meal to promote the reproductive process. The blood-feeding transmits extremely harmful infections including malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever, and other arboviruses, making mosquitoes one of the most harmful creatures to human health. The selection and localization of the host by mosquitoes mainly depends on the trace chemical cues emitted by the host into the environment, and the sense of smell is the main way to perceive these trace chemical cues. However, the knowledge of the olfactory mechanism is not enough to meet the needs of mosquito control. Unlike previous studies that focused on the olfactory receptor recognition spectrum to reveal the olfactory mechanism of mosquito host localization. In this paper, we proposed that artificial defects in mosquito antennal flagellomeres may affect their blood-feeding behavior, and through rationally designed behavioral experiments, we found that the 6th and 7th flagellomeres on Aedes albopictus antenna are important in the olfactory detection of host searching. Meanwhile, the morphology and distribution of sensilla on each antenna flagellomere were also analyzed and discussed in this paper.

Cross-modal sensory compensation increases mosquito attraction to humans

“…Antenna tip-cut mosquitoes engorged on human arms comparable to fully intact animals (Figure 4F). This result confirms that the antenna tip removal had minimal effect on overall human-seeking behavior, consistent with previous reports ( 50, 51 ).…”

“…Because our data show that the first three segments of the antennal tip are dispensable for various thermotaxis tasks, we wanted to know whether any portion of the antenna was required to detect thermal information. Since complete antenna removal disables mosquitoes from flying ( 50, 51 ), we turned to the opto-thermocycler assay (53). This assay tracks thermotaxis behavior, using probing movement as a proxy for heat detection at high temporal and spatial resolution without requiring flying behavior (Figure 4J).…”

“…An early study demonstrated that removing the antenna in Aedes aegypti had minimal impact on their ability to seek a combination of human odor and heat unless more than ten distal antenna segments were removed (50). Consistent with these findings, a recent study found that removing the distal six antenna segments in Aedes albopictus had little effect on blood-feeding on a human arm (51). In this study, we found no evidence that the antenna is required for heat-seeking behavior or that the antenna responds to heat.…”