Effects of antennal segments defects on blood-sucking behavior in Aedes albopictus

Abstract

After mating, female mosquitoes need a blood meal to promote the reproductive process. When mosquitoes bite infected people and animals, they become infected with germs such as viruses and parasites. Mosquitoes rely on many cues for host selection and localization, among which the trace chemical cues emitted by the host into the environment are considered to be the most important, and the sense of smell is the main way to perceive these trace chemical cues. However, the current understanding of the olfactory mechanism is not enough to meet the needs of mosquito control. Unlike previous studies that focused on the olfactory receptor recognition spectrum to reveal the olfactory mechanism of mosquito host localization. In this paper, based on the observation that mosquitoes with incomplete antennae still can locate the host and complete blood feeding in the laboratory, we proposed that there may be some protection or compensation mechanism in the 13 segments of antennae flagella, and only when the antennae are missing to a certain threshold will it affect the mosquito’s ability to locate the host. Through rational-designed behavioral experiments, we found that the 6th and 7th flagellomeres on the Aedes albopictus antenna are important in the olfactory detection of host searching. This study preliminarily screened antennal segments important for host localization of Ae. albopictus, and provided a reference for subsequent cell biology and molecular biology studies on these segments. Meanwhile, the morphology and distribution of sensilla on each antenna flagellomere were also analyzed and discussed in this paper.