Multimodal floral cues guide mosquitoes to tansy inflorescences.

ABSTRACT: Female mosquitoes exploit olfactory, CO₂, visual, and thermal cues to locate vertebrate hosts. Male and female mosquitoes also consume floral nectar that provides essential energy for flight and survival. Heretofore, nectar-foraging mosquitoes were thought to be guided solely by floral odorants. Using common tansies, Tanacetum vulgare L., northern house mosquitoes, Culex pipiens L., and yellow fever mosquitoes, Aedes aegpyti (L.), we tested the hypothesis that the entire inflorescence Gestalt of olfactory, CO₂ and visual cues is more attractive to mosquitoes than floral odorants alone. In laboratory experiments, we demonstrated that visual and olfactory inflorescence cues in combination attract more mosquitoes than olfactory cues alone. We established that tansies bec

SUBMITTER: Peach DAH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6405845 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature