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Dehydrated mosquitoes bite more often

28.05.2019

Mosquitoes are the most merciless creatures, carriers of diseases that kill hundreds of thousands of people every year. Only females, who need to obtain protein for egg maturation, bite. But blood can also serve as a "refreshing" drink on a hot and dry day.

New research has shown that dehydrated mosquitoes are more aggressive; pounce on the body of the host more often and feed more intensively than those that have ready access to water. In an effort to quench their thirst, mosquitoes also increase the risk of spreading disease, says Joshua Benoit, a biologist at the University of Cincinnati.

Because some species of mosquitoes lay their eggs on water, researchers have long assumed that wetter conditions help mosquitoes carry serious diseases. However, recent research work has suggested otherwise, linking increased disease transmission, such as West Nile fever, to drought. Opening team Dr. Bennoit helps explain these paradoxical findings.

Scientists became interested in the effect of dehydration on the behavior of the occasional mosquito: a worker dropped a container of dehydrated mosquitoes and saw them attack him with much more energy than usual.

The researchers studied three mosquito species that carry yellow fever, Zika virus or West Nile fever. They exposed hundreds of insects to varying temperatures and humidity levels in cages with or without access to water and nectar (the mosquitoes' preferred source of sugars).

Then they observed the behavior of the mosquitoes and recorded the frequency of their attacks on the "master": the "host" was a warm, waxy plastic membrane covered with artificial sweat and filled with chicken blood.

During the observation, it was noted that within a few hours, up to 30 percent of dehydrated mosquitoes fed on the blood of their host - compared with 5 to 10 percent of those who could drink water. "Even short periods of dehydration can have significant consequences," says Benoit.

These "very interesting" findings have real implications in predicting disease transmission rates," says Chloe Lahondere, an entomologist at the Institute of Technology, Virginia, who was not involved in the study. about their biology.

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