Dataset Information

Attraction of Female Aedes aegypti (L.) to Aphid Honeydew.

ABSTRACT: Plant sugar is an essential dietary constituent for mosquitoes, and hemipteran honeydew is one of the many forms of plant sugar that is important to mosquitoes. Many insects rely on volatile honeydew semiochemicals to locate aphids or honeydew itself. Mosquitoes exploit volatile semiochemicals to locate sources of plant sugar but their attraction to honeydew has not previously been investigated. Here, we report the attraction of female yellow fever mosquitoes, Aedes aegypti, to honeydew odorants from the green peach aphid, Myzus persicae, and the pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum, feeding on fava bean, Vicia faba. We used solid phase micro-extraction and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to collect and analyze headspace odorants from the honeydew of A. pisum feeding on V. faba. An eight-component synthetic blend of these odorants and synthetic odorant blends of crude and sterile honeydew that we prepared according to literature data all attracted female A. aegypti. The synthetic blend containing microbial odor constituents proved more effective than the blend without these constituents. Our study provides the first evidence for anemotactic attraction of mosquitoes to honeydew and demonstrates a role for microbe-derived odorants in the attraction of mosquitoes to essential plant sugar resources.

SUBMITTER: Peach DAH

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6409638 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Attraction of Female <i>Aedes aegypti</i> (L.) to Aphid Honeydew.

Peach Daniel A H DAH Gries Regine R Young Nathan N Lakes Robyn R Galloway Erin E Alamsetti Santosh Kumar SK Ko Elton E Ly Amy A Gries Gerhard G

Insects 20190201 2

Plant sugar is an essential dietary constituent for mosquitoes, and hemipteran honeydew is one of the many forms of plant sugar that is important to mosquitoes. Many insects rely on volatile honeydew semiochemicals to locate aphids or honeydew itself. Mosquitoes exploit volatile semiochemicals to locate sources of plant sugar but their attraction to honeydew has not previously been investigated. Here, we report the attraction of female yellow fever mosquitoes, <i>Aedes aegypti</i>, to honeydew o ...[more]

PMID: 30717169

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Project description:Aedes aegypti, the principal vector of yellow fever and dengue fever, is responsible for more than 30,000 deaths annually. Compounds such as carbon dioxide, amino acids, fatty acids and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs) have been widely studied for their role in attracting Ae. aegypti to hosts. Many VOCs from humans are produced by associated skin microbiota. Staphyloccocus epidermidis, although not the most abundant bacteria according to surveys of relative 16S ribosomal RNA abundance, commonly occurs on human skin. Bacteria demonstrate population level decision-making through quorum sensing. Many quorum sensing molecules, such as indole, volatilize and become part of the host odor plum. To date, no one has directly demonstrated the link between quorum sensing (i.e., decision-making) by bacteria associated with a host as a factor regulating arthropod vector attraction. This study examined this specific question with regards to S. epidermidis and Ae. aegypti. Pairwise tests were conducted to examine the response of female Ae. aegypti to combinations of tryptic soy broth (TSB) and S. epidermidis wildtype and agr- strains. The agr gene expresses an accessory gene regulator for quorum sensing; therefore, removing this gene inhibits quorum sensing of the bacteria. Differential attractiveness of mosquitoes to the wildtype and agr- strains was observed. Both wildtype and the agr- strain of S. epidermidis with TSB were marginally more attractive to Ae. aegypti than the TSB alone. Most interestingly, the blood-feeder treated with wildtype S. epidermidis/TSB attracted 74% of Ae. aegypti compared to the agr- strain of S. epidermidis/TSB (P ≤ 0.0001). This study is the first to suggest a role for interkingdom communication between host symbiotic bacteria and mosquitoes. This may have implications for mosquito decision-making with regards to host detection, location and acceptance. We speculate that mosquitoes "eavesdrop" on the chemical discussions occurring between host-associated microbes to determine suitability for blood feeding. We believe these data suggest that manipulating quorum sensing by bacteria could serve as a novel approach for reducing mosquito attraction to hosts, or possibly enhancing the trapping of adults at favored oviposition sites.

Project description:BackgroundMosquitoes are responsible for disease transmission worldwide. They possess the ability to discriminate between different ecological resources, including nectar sources, animal hosts and oviposition sites, a feature mediated by their olfactory system. Insect repellents, such as N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide (also called DEET), have been shown to activate and inhibit mosquito odorant receptors, resulting in behavioral modulation. This and other repellents currently available for personal protection against mosquitoes are topically applied to the skin and operate at a short range. In our search for potential long-range inhibitors of attractants to human hosts, we have hypothesized that the shared chemical similarities between indole and DEET may confer the former with the ability to block odorant receptor function and inhibit human host attraction in a similar way as DEET.MethodsWe used the two-electrode voltage clamp system to assay Xenopus laevis oocytes as a platform to compare the pharmacological effect of commercially available insect repellents and indole on the Aedes aegypti (R)-1-octen-3-ol receptor, OR8, a receptor involved in the decision-making of female mosquitoes to identify human hosts. We also conducted arm-in-a-cage and wind-tunnel bioassays to explore the effect of indole on human host-seeking female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes.ResultsOur results demonstrate that indole inhibited the Aedes aegypti (R)-1-octen-3-ol receptor OR8. In our arm-in-a-cage assay, 1 M of DEET reduced mosquito visits on average by 69.3% while the same indole concentration achieved 97.8% inhibition. This effect of indole on flight visits was dose-dependent and disappeared at 1 μM. In the flight tunnel, indole elicited on average 27.5% lower speed, 42.3% lower upwind velocity and 30.4% higher tortuosity compared to the control.ConclusionsIndole significantly inhibits OR8 activation by (R)-1-octen-3-ol, mosquito visits to a human hand and long-range human host-seeking. The volatility of indole may be leveraged to develop a novel insect repellent in the context of personal mosquito protection.

Project description:House flies are of major concern as vectors of food-borne pathogens to food crops. House flies are common pests on cattle feedlots and dairies, where they develop in and feed on animal waste. By contacting animal waste, house flies can acquire human pathogenic bacteria such as Escherichia coli and Salmonella spp., in addition to other bacteria, viruses, or parasites that may infect humans and animals. The subsequent dispersal of house flies from animal facilities to nearby agricultural fields containing food crops may lead to pre-harvest food contamination with these pathogens. We hypothesized that odors from honeydew, the sugary excreta produced by sucking insects feeding on crops, or molds and fungi growing on honeydew, may attract house flies, thereby increasing the risk of food crop contamination. House fly attraction to honeydew-contaminated plant material was evaluated using a laboratory bioassay. House flies were attracted to the following plant-pest-honeydew combinations: citrus mealybug on squash fruit, pea aphid on faba bean plants, whitefly on navel orange and grapefruit leaves, and combined citrus mealybug and cottony cushion scale on mandarin orange leaves. House flies were not attracted to field-collected samples of lerp psyllids on eucalyptus plants or aphids on crepe myrtle leaves. Fungi associated with field-collected honeydews were isolated and identified for further study as possible emitters of volatiles attractive to house flies. Two fungal species, Aureobasidium pullulans and Cladosporium cladosporioides, were repeatedly isolated from field-collected honeydew samples. Both fungal species were grown in potato dextrose enrichment broth and house fly attraction to volatiles from these fungal cultures was evaluated. House flies were attracted to odors from A. pullulans cultures but not to those of C. cladosporioides. Identification of specific honeydew odors that are attractive to house flies could be valuable for the development of improved house fly baits for management of this pest species.

Dataset Information

Attraction of Female Aedes aegypti (L.) to Aphid Honeydew.

Publications

Attraction of Female <i>Aedes aegypti</i> (L.) to Aphid Honeydew.

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