Host Preference of the Arbovirus VectorCulex erraticus(Diptera: Culicidae) at Sonso Lake, Cauca Valley Department, Colombia

Abstract

Culex erraticus (Dyar & Knab) is a competent vector of Eastern equine encephalitis virus and subtype IC Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus, and both St. Louis encephalitis virus and West Nile virus have been isolated from field-collected specimens. Previous bloodmeal analysis studies have shown this species to be a generalist, feeding on a variety of mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. This behavior can bridge arboviral transmission across different vertebrate groups. Our study examined the host preference of Cx. erraticus at Sonso Lake in Colombia. From July to August 2008, blood-engorged mosquitoes were collected from resting boxes, while vertebrate abundance was determined to calculate host preference. Based on mitochondrial DNA analysis of bloodmeals, birds were the predominant hosts (57.6%), followed by mammals (30.8%), and reptiles (6.7%); 9.5% of the bloodmeals were mixed. The most commonly fed upon species were: limpkin, black-crowned night-heron, striated heron, human, and capybara. Forage ratios showed the least bittern, limpkin, Cocoi heron, striated heron, capybara, and black-crowned night heron were preferred hosts across all vertebrates. Of the available avifauna, the least bittern, limpkin, striated heron, Cocoi heron, and black-crowned night heron were preferred, whereas the bare faced ibis, great egret, snowy egret, and cattle egret were under-used. This study shows that while Cx. erraticus is an opportunistic feeder, using diverse vertebrate hosts in the environment, certain avian species are targeted preferentially for bloodmeals.

Blood feeding habits of mosquitoes: hardly a bite in South America

“…Finally, an evaluation of host availability in order to estimate mosquito host preferences in field conditions was conducted in 11 studies (Table S3 ). Ten of them quantified host availability at mosquito capture sites, by one or a combination of the following tools: census of individuals providing absolute counts (e.g., Gomes et al 2003 ; Bataille et al 2012 ), visual, and/or auditory sampling of avian species (e.g., Mendenhall et al 2012 ; Hoyos Loaiza 2018 ), surveys to residents (e.g., Rubio-Palis et al 1994 ), and bibliographic sources or data bases available for the area (e.g., Alencar et al 2005 ). The obtained information was used considering the raw number of individuals (in the majority of the studies) or standardized by animal weight (e.g., Lardeux et al 2007 ; Saavedra et al 2019 ).…”

Avian phenotypic traits related to feeding preferences in two Culex mosquitoes

“…This mosquito was the only shared species studied by both Hamer et al (2009) and Estep et al (2011), and so the data in these two studies could not be analyzed jointly. Mendenhall et al (2012) For each bird and mosquito species, these authors reported a FR calculated as the ratio between the fraction of mosquitoes that had fed on a given bird species and the fraction of the censused individuals belonging to that bird species in the study area.…”

Mosquito Community and West Nile Virus Risk on a National Guard Training Base in Oklahoma

“…Primarily a bird-feeding species that transitions to mammals later in the season, Cx. erraticus has been documented with natural infections of eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) virus and WNV (Harrison et al 2009, Mendenhall et al 2012, Mukherjee et al 2012, Godsey et al 2013, Bingham et al 2016. Culex erraticus is a potential bridge vector (Cupp et al 2003(Cupp et al , 2004Cohen et al 2009;Lindsey et al 2018) reported nonhuman cases of EEE in 4 counties and at least 1 human case along the Arkansas-Oklahoma border.…”