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Mating and starvation modulate feeding and host-seeking responses in female bed bugs, Cimex lectularius.

ABSTRACT: Reproductive fitness and survival are enhanced by adaptive behaviors that are modulated by internal physiological states and external social contexts. The common bed bug, Cimex lectularius, is an obligate hematophagous ectoparasite that requires host blood for growth, development, and reproduction. We investigated how mating, starvation and social interactions affect host-seeking, blood feeding, oviposition, and survival of female bed bugs. The percentage of females that fed and the amount of blood they ingested were greater in mated females (90-100%) than in unmated females (48-60%). Mating state also modulated the female's orientation towards human skin odor in an olfactometer; more mated (69%) than unmated (23%) females responded to human odors. The response rate of unmated females (60%) to skin odor increased with longer starvation period, while the opposite pattern was observed in mated females (20%). Although fecundity after a single blood meal was unaffected by long or short residence and interaction with males, females subjected to frequent copulation attempts had lower survivorship and lifespan than females housed with males for only 24 h. Taken together, these results indicate that by adaptively and coordinately expressing behaviors based on the internal physiological state, females maximize their survival and reproductive fitness.

SUBMITTER: Saveer AM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7820594 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Mating and starvation modulate feeding and host-seeking responses in female bed bugs, Cimex lectularius.

Saveer Ahmed M AM DeVries Zachary C ZC Santangelo Richard G RG Schal Coby C

Scientific reports 20210121 1

Reproductive fitness and survival are enhanced by adaptive behaviors that are modulated by internal physiological states and external social contexts. The common bed bug, Cimex lectularius, is an obligate hematophagous ectoparasite that requires host blood for growth, development, and reproduction. We investigated how mating, starvation and social interactions affect host-seeking, blood feeding, oviposition, and survival of female bed bugs. The percentage of females that fed and the amount of bl ...[more]

PMID: 33479298

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Project description:The global population growth of the bed bug, Cimex lectularius (L.), is attributed to their cryptic behavior, diverse insecticide resistance mechanisms, and lack of public awareness. Bed bug control can be challenging and typically requires chemical and non-chemical treatments. One common non-chemical method for bed bug management is thermal remediation. However, in certain instances, bed bugs are known to survive heat treatments. Bed bugs may be present after a heat treatment due to (i) abiotic factors associated with the inability to achieve lethal temperatures in harborage areas for a sufficient time period, (ii) re-infestation from insects that escaped to cooler areas during a heat treatment or (iii) development of physiological resistance that allows them to survive heat exposure. Previous research has investigated the optimal temperature and exposure time required for either achieving complete mortality or sublethally affecting their growth and development. However, no research has examined bed bug populations for their ability to develop resistance to heat exposure and variation in thermo-tolerance between different bed bug strains. The goals of this study were: i) to determine if bed bugs could be selected for heat resistance under a laboratory selection regime, and ii) to determine if bed bug populations with various heat exposure histories, insecticide resistance profiles, and geographic origins have differential temperature tolerances using two heat exposure techniques (step-function and ramp-function). Selection experiments found an initial increase in bed bug survivorship; however, survivorship did not increase past the fourth generation. Sublethal exposure to heat significantly reduced bed bug feeding and, in some cases, inhibited development. The step-function exposure technique revealed non-significant variation in heat tolerance between populations and the ramp-function exposure technique provided similar results. Based on these study outcomes, the ability of bed bugs to develop heat resistance appears to be limited.

Project description:BackgroundBed bugs (Cimex lectularius) are blood-feeding insects poised to become one of the major pests in households throughout the United States. Resistance of C. lectularius to insecticides/pesticides is one factor thought to be involved in its sudden resurgence. Despite its high-impact status, scant knowledge exists at the genomic level for C. lectularius. Hence, we subjected the C. lectularius transcriptome to 454 pyrosequencing in order to identify potential genes involved in pesticide resistance.Methodology and principal findingsUsing 454 pyrosequencing, we obtained a total of 216,419 reads with 79,596,412 bp, which were assembled into 35,646 expressed sequence tags (3902 contigs and 31744 singletons). Nearly 85.9% of the C. lectularius sequences showed similarity to insect sequences, but 44.8% of the deduced proteins of C. lectularius did not show similarity with sequences in the GenBank non-redundant database. KEGG analysis revealed putative members of several detoxification pathways involved in pesticide resistance. Lamprin domains, Protein Kinase domains, Protein Tyrosine Kinase domains and cytochrome P450 domains were among the top Pfam domains predicted for the C. lectularius sequences. An initial assessment of putative defense genes, including a cytochrome P450 and a glutathione-S-transferase (GST), revealed high transcript levels for the cytochrome P450 (CYP9) in pesticide-exposed versus pesticide-susceptible C. lectularius populations. A significant number of single nucleotide polymorphisms (296) and microsatellite loci (370) were predicted in the C. lectularius sequences. Furthermore, 59 putative sequences of Wolbachia were retrieved from the database.ConclusionsTo our knowledge this is the first study to elucidate the genetic makeup of C. lectularius. This pyrosequencing effort provides clues to the identification of potential detoxification genes involved in pesticide resistance of C. lectularius and lays the foundation for future functional genomics studies.

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Mating and starvation modulate feeding and host-seeking responses in female bed bugs, Cimex lectularius.

Publications

Mating and starvation modulate feeding and host-seeking responses in female bed bugs, Cimex lectularius.

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