Dataset Information

Effects of low-powered RF sweep between 0.01-20 GHz on female Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes: A collective behaviour analysis.

ABSTRACT: There are many products claiming to be an electronic solution towards repelling mosquitoes. Several reviews were published in debunking these claims. However, there is a lack of a systematic study on effects of electromagnetic (EM) or more specifically, radio frequency (RF) waves against mosquitoes due to the conclusions made in those years. Therefore, we attempt to establish a fundamental study on female Aedes Aegypti (Linnaeus) mosquitoes by quantifying the collective behavior of the mosquitoes against a continuous stream of low-powered RF signals via a broadband horn antenna using image processing methods. By examining the average lateral and vertical positions of the mosquitoes versus frequency and time, the data shows negligible consistency in the reactions of the mosquitoes toward the different frequencies ranging from 10 to 20,000.00 MHz, with a step of 10 MHz. This was done by examining 33 hours of spatiotemporal data, which was divided into three sessions. All three sessions showed totally different convolutions in the positions in arbitrary units based on the raster scan of the image processing output. Several frequencies apparently showed up to 0.2-70% shift in both lateral and vertical components along the spectrum, without repeatability for all three sessions. This study contributes to the following: A pilot study for establishing the collective effects of RF against mosquitoes, open-source use, and finally a low-cost and easily adaptable platform for the study of EM effects against any insects.

SUBMITTER: Poh AH

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5459433 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Effects of low-powered RF sweep between 0.01-20 GHz on female Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes: A collective behaviour analysis.

Poh Abdul Halim AH Moghavvemi Mahmoud M Shafiei M M MM Leong C S CS Lau Yee Ling YL Mahamd Adikan Faisal Rafiq FR Bakhtiari Majid M Abdulla Hassan Mahmood Ameen MA

PloS one 20170605 6

There are many products claiming to be an electronic solution towards repelling mosquitoes. Several reviews were published in debunking these claims. However, there is a lack of a systematic study on effects of electromagnetic (EM) or more specifically, radio frequency (RF) waves against mosquitoes due to the conclusions made in those years. Therefore, we attempt to establish a fundamental study on female Aedes Aegypti (Linnaeus) mosquitoes by quantifying the collective behavior of the mosquitoe ...[more]

PMID: 28582398

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Project description:Classifying and quantifying mosquito activity includes a plethora of categories, ranging from measuring flight speeds, repellency, feeding rates, and specific behaviors such as home entry, swooping and resting, among others. Entomologists have been progressing more toward using machine vision for efficiency for this endeavor. Digital methods have been used to study the behavior of insects in labs, for instance via three-dimensional tracking with specialized cameras to observe the reaction of mosquitoes towards human odor, heat and CO2, although virtually none was reported for several important fields, such as repellency studies which have a significant need for a proper response quantification. However, tracking mosquitoes individually is a challenge and only limited number of specimens can be studied. Although tracking large numbers of individual insects is hailed as one of the characteristics of an ideal automated image-based tracking system especially in 3D, it also is a costly method, often requiring specialized hardware and limited access to the algorithms used for mapping the specimens. The method proposed contributes towards (a) unlimited open source use, (b) a low-cost setup, (c) complete guide for any entomologist to adapt in terms of hardware and software, (d) simple to use, and (e) a lightweight data output for collective behavior analysis of mosquitoes. The setup is demonstrated by testing a simple response of mosquitoes in the presence of human odor versus control, one session with continuous human presence as a stimuli and the other with periodic presence. A group of female Aedes aegypti (Linnaeus) mosquitoes are released into a white-background chamber with a transparent acrylic panel on one side. The video feed of the mosquitoes are processed using filtered contours in a threshold-adjustable video. The mosquitoes in the chamber are mapped on the raster where the coordinates of each mosquito are recorded with the corresponding timestamp. The average distance of the blobs within the frames against time forms a spectra where behavioral patterns can be observed directly, whether any collective effect is observed. With this method, 3D tracking will not be required and a more straightforward data output can be obtained.

Dataset Information

Effects of low-powered RF sweep between 0.01-20 GHz on female Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes: A collective behaviour analysis.

Publications

Effects of low-powered RF sweep between 0.01-20 GHz on female Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes: A collective behaviour analysis.

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