Mosquitoes transmit numerous human pathogens collectively responsible for at least one million deaths each year. In addition to rising insecticide resistance and other factors, it has become increasingly evident that current strategies to control mosquito populations are being confounded by the resilience conferred by mosquitoes’ high levels of behavioral and physiological plasticity. As larvae, they occupy diverse habitats and are influenced by a suite of ecological factors that will impact their adult life. Interestingly, female mosquitoes show a high degree of plasticity in body size as a response to environmental variability. However, while it is known that body size strongly correlates with adult behavior and reproductive traits, how these trait-mediated environmental effects impact the host-seeking behavior and vectorial capacity of females remains unknown. Here, we varied levels of intraspecific competition to quantify how larval conditions impacted olfactory responses of adult females seeking hosts for blood. Our results showed that host-seeking preferences are strongly linked to variability in female body size. Weighted gene correlation network analysis (WGCNA) of the head transcriptome of large and small-sized females revealed differences in genes linked to onset of host-seeking, olfactory sensitivity, and salivary gland proteins. Results will be discussed in the context of their impact on mosquito population dynamics.

Transstadial effects on mosquitoes’ body size modulate their vector potential

ACS Fall 2021

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