Investigation of attractants for mosquitoes in East Africa (Diptera: Culicidae)
Date
1999
Authors
Murphy, Matthew William
Major Professor
Advisor
Rowley, Wayne A.
Committee Member
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Abstract
Mosquitoes are the most important blood-sucking insects worldwide, serving as vectors for a variety of deadly diseases. Identified attractants of disease vectors can be utilized to the increase sensitivity of traps used to capture adult mosquitoes for early detection of disease vectors. The early warning capability will allow emergency mosquito abatement and disease intervention measures to be applied before mosquito population densities attain the disease transmission threshold. This thesis provides results from investigations studying the responses of various vector species to both olfactory and visual cues. The primary focus of the research was on the primary malaria vectors Anopheles gambiae Giles and Anopheles funestus Giles. The research was conducted in a region of high malaria transmission in Western Kenya.
A total of 29,370 Anopheles were captured in this research and over 50,000 mosquitoes captured total. The search for olfactory host-location cues involved isolating components of human sweat and testing that chemical in association with carbon dioxide by baiting a trap and comparing the catches by treatment. L-lactic acid showed the greatest response by Anopheles mosquitoes resulting in statistically significant catches of female An. gambiae (p<.0001) over CO2 alone. The effect of light on Anopheles malaria vectors was unknown. Research was conducted utilizing a trap with a light and a trap without a light in direct comparisons.
The results showed all mosquito groups with a significant preference for light over traps without light. In further research it was discovered that the addition of light to traps masked the effects of any olfactory attractants resulting in high catch numbers with or without any additional olfactory cues. The research show visual and olfactory attractants do work to increase trap sensitivity and mosquito catch. Further work must be done to solve the complexity of human olfactory cues to discover attractant combinations that will serve as the ultimate attractant for use in vector control.
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thesis