The Long and Short of Hearing in the Mosquito Aedes aegypti

Anthropogenic noise and the bioacoustics of terrestrial invertebrates

“…However, Shamble et al (2016) demonstrated with behavioral and physiological data that jumping spiders can detect acoustic energy at distances of at least 3 m using near-field receptors. Similarly, Menda et al (2019) demonstrated that mosquitoes can detect sound up to 10 m away using their antennae. Furthermore, Zhou and Miles (2017) presented models showing that small fibers (>1 μm), such as those used as near-field receptors, move with the surrounding medium.…”

Mosquito sound communication: are male swarms loud enough to attract females?

“…Attraction of females to the sound of distant male swarms has been mentioned in the literature [35] and studies have explored the potential for using distant mosquito sound as a tool for detection and surveillance of mosquito populations [36], but to our knowledge this hypothesis has not been tested quantitatively in the context of intra-mosquito comunication. When exposed to opposite-sex sound, electrophysiological studies show that females are less sensitive to sound than males [1,17,19], however, female hearing sensitivity is similar to the male's one when their own wingbeat are simulated in addition to the oposite-sex sound, revealing that free-flying females may be as sensitive to sound as males [20]. Although females have not been shown to move toward a source of male sound (phonotaxis), they do alter their wingbeat frequency when exposed to male sound [1,3,[38][39][40].…”

“…It is assumed that the hearing distance between a male and a female is limited to a range of a few centimetres to ~ 10 cm (12, 13) . However, although their auditory organs are optimized for close-range hearing, they are not restricted to a given hearing distance (14) , because they are sensitive to an intrinsic component of sound (15, 16) . Consequently, males have been shown to respond to artificially-loud sound levels of played-back single female flight-tones metres away from the sound source (16) .…”

“…However, although their auditory organs are optimized for close-range hearing, they are not restricted to a given hearing distance (14) , because they are sensitive to an intrinsic component of sound (15, 16) . Consequently, males have been shown to respond to artificially-loud sound levels of played-back single female flight-tones metres away from the sound source (16) . Thus, the debate about hearing distance should be strictly linked to sound-source power and the biological relevance of the sound-source in the field.…”

“…Thus, the debate about hearing distance should be strictly linked to sound-source power and the biological relevance of the sound-source in the field. In other words, is long-range inter-mosquito sound communication (16) only possible in the laboratory, or does it also occur under natural environmental conditions? From existing results, it is reasonable to assume that to be heard at distances greater than ~10 cm the source of mosquito sound must be more powerful than that of an individual mosquito.…”