Multiple Blood Feeding and Host-Seeking Behavior in <I>Aedes aegypti</I> and <I>Aedes albopictus</I> (Diptera: Culicidae)

Abstract

The body size of mosquitoes can influence a number of bionomic factors, such as their blood-feeding ability, host attack rate, and fecundity. All of these traits are important determinants of their potential to transmit diseases. Among abiotic and biotic factors, high temperature and low nutrition in the developing stages of mosquitoes generally result in small adults. We studied the relationship between body size and multiple feeding in a gonotrophic cycle and some fecundity attributes by using three strains of two competent vector species, Aedes aegypti (L.) and Aedes albopictus (Skuse). We raised small and large mosquitoes under low and high food conditions in the laboratory to measure parameters of fecundity and blood-feeding behavior. Fecundity was positively correlated with body size in both species, whereas the number of bloodmeals, the frequency of host-seeking behavior, and egg retention were negatively correlated with body size in the Ae. albopictus Nagasaki strain. We found that multiple feeding and host-seeking behavior were negatively correlated with body size, i.e., small mosquitoes tended to have more contact with hosts. We found that two mechanisms that inhibit engorged mosquitoes from seeking out hosts, distension-induced and oocyte-induced inhibition, were not strong enough to limit host-seeking behavior, and multiple feeding increased fecundity. Size-dependent multiple feeding and host-seeking behavior affect contact frequency with hosts and should be considered when predicting how changes in mosquito body size affect disease transmission.

Global risk model for vector-borne transmission of Zika virus reveals the role of El Niño 2015

“…aegypti and Ae. albopictus seem to have different susceptibilities to ZIKV (7, 14-16), feeding rates, and feeding preferences (17,18). Ae.…”

Validation of the Infectra&lt;sup&gt;®&lt;/sup&gt;-Kit in Malaria Transmission Studies Using &lt;i&gt;Plasmodium Berghei&lt;/i&gt;

“…This difference could be attributed to several factors such as the mosquito size, entomological inoculation rates (EIR) and multiple feeding which were not measured in this study. Previous studies suggests that multiple feeding increases fecundity (Thahsin & Nobuko, 2013) and smaller females require 2 or 3 blood meals to facilitate completion of the first gonotrophic cycle (Edith &Takken, 1993). It is our speculation that the state at which the mice were at the time of mosquito feeding could as well have contributed to this difference.…”

Defining the risk of Zika and chikungunya virus transmission in human population centers of the eastern United States

“…albopictus must bite humans at least 40% of the time. The Asian tiger mosquito's vectorial capacity is persistently questioned because the propensity for biting humans versus other vertebrates varies widely, as the species appears to opportunistically bite the most available vertebrates [19,20,26,[28][29][30][34][35][36][37]. We show that while a higher probability of human host-use is associated with greater R 0 , increasing the proportion of bites from humans above 40% increased potential for local transmission and resulting human disease.…”

“…Studies demonstrate that propensity for human biting by Ae. albopictus across its invasive range varies widely and that the species appears to opportunistically bite whatever birds or mammals most readily available [18,20,26,28,30,34,35,71], although some studies indicate a human preference [37]. We assumed that of the total number of mosquito bites per day a certain proportion, P h , are on humans and 1-P h are on alternate hosts.…”